Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair']

FRYING FAT ALLOCATION (PETITION)

Mr. Martin Lindsay: I beg leave of the House to present a humble Petition from the inhabitants of the Parish of Shirley in the Parliamentary constituency of Solihull. The Petition showeth
That the fat ration allocated to Mrs. Corden of 120c, Haslucks, Green Road, Shirley, is insufficient for her to provide the said people of Shirley with comfort and nourishment in the form of fried fish as is reasonable and desirable. Wherefore your Petitioners pray they may be granted relief from such hardship with an increased ration of cooking fat. Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Petition to lie upon the Table.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ROTHERHAM CORPORATION BlLL. [Lords.]

As amended, considered; to b read the Third time.

CAMPBELTOWN WATER, ETC., ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

ARDROSSAN GAS PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL

"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, relating to Ardrossan Gas," presented by Mr. Westwood; Standing Order 216 suspended; Bill to be read the First time.— [The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the First time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 152.]

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Savings Bank (Opening of Accounts)

Sir William Darling: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General why the production of an identity card is necessary to open a Savings Bank account while no such formality obtains in most banking institutions of the country and seeing that this formality is calculated to discourage savings through direct Government channels.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): I know of no banking institution in the country which will open an account with less formality than the Post Office, and the holder of a Post Office Savings Bank account is able to operate on it at any one of the 18,000 Post Offices in this country which transact Savings Bank business. As explained in my answer to the hon. Member on 24th June, the Post Office requires the production of the identity card in order to assist in preventing accounts being opened for the purpose of fraud. This requirement, which is a simple and expeditious method of establishing the bona fides of the applicant, has been accepted by the vast majority of the people who normally bank with the Post Office and there is no evidence that the requirement discourages savings.

Sir W. Darling: Is the Assistant Postmaster-General prepared to consider adopting the wholly satisfactory method of private banking institutions, which dispenses with the use of identity cards? Is it right that the State should show this spirit of uncharitable suspicion towards its citizens, while private enterprise does not?

Mr. Burke: No unnecessary uncharitable suspicions are shown. This is to protect the people's money.

Football Pool Circulars

Mr. Nally: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many packages of circulars and other matter from football pool firms were handled by his Department in each of the last four weeks to the latest convenient date.

Mr. Burke: The numbers of packets posted are estimated to be as follow:


Week ending


22nd June
…
…
1,394,000


29th June
…
…
7,532,000


6th July
…
…
7,128,000


13th July
…
…
3,678,000

Betting Circulars

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he will prohibit all unsolicited circulars being sent through the post containing betting and gambling information until the present paper shortage has been rectified.

Mr. Burke: My noble Friend would not feel justified in prohibiting the transmission through the post of any such circulars which the promoters are able to post under present day paper restrictions, provided the circulars do not relate to an illegal business.

Mr. Freeman: Is the Assistant Postmaster-General aware that some of these circulars contain as many as five enclosures which are elaborately printed in coloured inks? In view of the colossal number of circulars and the shortage of paper in other directions, does he not think this is a direction in which we might save paper instead of allowing these people to exploit the public?

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Is it not remarkable how often Members opposite are trying to stop someone's fun somewhere?

Mr. Burke: The allowance of paper is in accordance with the Paper Control. I would remind hon. Members that the circulars used today are much thinner and the size of the paper much smaller than in prewar times.

Mr. Nally: Is the Assistant Postmaster-General aware that the purpose of Questions 5 and 6 is an endeavour to protect the public from crooks? It is a pity that on this we have not the cooperation of Members on the other side.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is it not clear that the purpose of Question 6 is to save paper until the present shortage is over?

Wireless Licences

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General in how many cases the Post Office refused to renew wireless licences during May in order to charge the extra 10s. which became due on 1st June.

Mr. Burke: None, Sir. As my hon. Friend explained in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) on 20th June, broadcast receiving licences are valid up to and including the last day of a calendar month. Licences due for renewal before 1st June were properly charged at the old rate of 10s.; those due for renewal on or after 1st June were properly charged for at the new rate of £1.

Letter Delivery, Welton

Mr. Glossop: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General why certain portions of the village of Welton, East Yorkshire, do not receive an afternoon delivery of letters; and whether he is aware that some houses within 800 yards of the Post Office are outside the area of the second delivery.

Mr. Burke: The afternoon delivery of letters in Welton has been restored to all those houses which enjoyed the facility before the war. There are six outlying houses which do not get the delivery because the cost would be prohibitive in relation to the number of letters for delivery. Arrangements have however been made for correspondence for these houses to be available to callers at the Welton Post Office in the afternoon.

Mr. Glossop: Will the hon. Gentleman reconsider these houses 800 yards away, in view of the declared policy of H.M. Government to share and share alike?

Mr. Burke: There are six houses in outlying districts, and they lie in very different directions. The cost of meeting them would be entirely prohibitive.

Mr. York: Are we to understand that it is the policy of the Government that the cost of the postal services is the dominating factor in the citizens getting a proper service or not?

Mr. Burke: There is a limit to the number of districts in which we can have a loss.

TOURIST TRAFFIC

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give an indication as to the number of tourists who have arrived in this country during recent weeks.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): Plans are being made for the promotion of tourist traffic next year, but conditions this year have made it impracticable to encourage such traffic. No figures are available, but the number of short term visitors who can properly be classified as tourists must be very small.

Mr. Janner: Will the Minister take every possible measure to encourage tourists to come to this country, and, in particular, will he see that the beauty and amenities of such cities as Leicester and counties as Leicestershire are publicised and made generally known for this purpose?

Mr. Ede: I hope that next year we shall be able to encourage this traffic on a large scale.

Major Peter Roberts: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the comparatively low number of tourists is due to the present Government?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I do not think so. There are numbers of people who are very anxious to see how we are getting on.

LICENSED HOUSES (OPENING HOURS)

Major Wyatt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider circularising licensing justices with a view to the institution of uniform opening hours for public houses, area by area, during the present beer shortage.

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to standardise the opening hours of public houses.

Mr. Ede: I have already circulated to licensing justices the Question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Upton (Mr. A. Lewis) on 24th June and the reply which I gave, supporting the growing practice of local agreements on this subject.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if any steps are being taken to supply something to drink when the "pubs" are open?

BOARDING OUT CASE, KENT (INFRINGEMENT)

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department by what authority a boy aged 13, who had been committed on 2nd September, 1942 to the care of the Kent County Council for boarding out with foster parents, was placed in a remand home in January, 1946, and retained there for five months; whether the Kent County Council made any application to his Department under the Children and Young Persons Boarding-out Rules, 1933, for special arrangements to be made; and, if so, on what date the application was made.

Mr. Ede: When the Kent County Council accepted the care of this boy in September, 1942, they arranged to place him with a suitable foster parent with whom he remained for over three years. In January last he was moved at the request of the foster parent, and he was placed in the Council's remand home for younger boys, as a place of safety, until other arrangements could be made. In spite of every effort, including advertisements in the Press, the council were not able to find a new foster parent, and the boy remained in the home until June. My hon. Friend is right in suggesting that in view of this delay it was the duty of the council to obtain my consent to the boy's continued stay in the home. In a letter written on 13th June the council expressed regret for the omission.

Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is an extremely serious infringement of the liberty of the person, and would he say whether this letter, which was sent to his Department, was sent after the child's parents had applied to the juvenile court for a reduction of the order; and can he say whether there have been any similar cases elsewhere in the country?

Mr. Ede: I agree that this is a very serious lapse on the part of a county council that is normally most efficient. I do not think that anyone would contend that, in its ordinary administration, the Kent County Council is other than efficient. I have received this expression of regret, but with regard to the precise details for which my hon. Friend asks, cannot answer them without notice. I have no reason to think that the rule


which was infringed on this occasion is not usually obeyed by the authority.

Mr. Hogg: Ought it not to be the case that, having regard to the fact that the original order for custody is made by a juvenile court in most cases, where the transfer is proposed from the foster parent into whose care the child has been placed by the court, the court should be consulted just as much as the right hon. Gentleman, and is it not wholly unsuitable that such a transfer should take place solely at the instance of the foster parents, without informing the real parents?

Mr. Ede: That is an indictment of the existing law and not of my Department or of the Kent County Council.

Mr. Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to inform the various authorities to whom children are sent, as being fit persons to receive them, that this is a terrible infringement of the liberty of the person of the child and that they should be very careful not to make a lapse of that sort?

Mr. Ede: I am taking steps to see that the attention of the authorities is drawn to these requirements, and I hope that the expression of opinion made in the House today, with which I agree, will emphasise the representations which I am making.

ALIEN WIVES (BRITISH SOLDIERS)

Captain Chetwynd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many German and Austrian-born wives of British soldiers serving in Germany and Austria have been admitted to this country.

Mr. Ede: Such information would not be obtainable from the statistics kept by my Department and there is nothing I can add to the reply given on Tuesday to my hon. and gallant Friend by the Secretary of State for War.

LOUD SPEAKER ADVERTISING

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why instructions have been issued to the Metropolitan Police to forbid and prevent, under Section 35 (14) of the Metropolitan Police Act, the announcing of meetings by loud speaker.

Mr. Ede: No such instructions have been issued recently to the police. The use of noisy instruments for calling meetings is prohibited by Section 54 (14) of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839, but the police do not normally take action unless annoyance is caused.

Mr. Walker-Smith: May I take it that in that case the Barnet police authorities were acting in excessive zeal in prohibiting the advertising of a perfectly proper and democratic meeting to discuss the bread situation? Will the Home Secretary further say that this ancient Act will not be used to ban the use of loud speaker advertising that clearly was not in contemplation when Parliament passed the Act?

Mr. Ede: I think that some excess of zeal was shown by the constable in question, because he did not wait to ascertain whether anybody was annoyed by the sounds that were to be emitted. I think that on the whole it is desirable that this power should be retained, because undoubtedly on occasions loud speaker announcements and similar things do cause considerable annoyance and should be under reasonable control.

Dr. Stephen Taylor: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, nevertheless, loud speaker announcements in Barnet do cause some annoyance?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Is it not a fact that what this House is interested in is that the annoyance should be proved to be caused to the inhabitants of Barnet and not to those representing the views of the present Government?

Mr. Ede: Amongst the inhabitants of Barnet there is a considerable number of people who share the views of this Government.

PARLIAMENTARY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARIES

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the directions against the overlapping of Parliamentary and local government boundaries contained in the Third Schedule to the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944, the Government will undertake, before draft-


ing legislation to give effect to any recommendations of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions for England and Wales, to consult the Local Government Boundary Commission and the Reading Com-mittee on London Local Government.

Mr. Ede: This point has not escaped attention, but I understand that the work of the Local Government Boundary Commission is likely to continue for some time, and at whatever date during the lifetime of the present Parliament a Redistribution Bill is introduced, some constituencies will be liable to be affected shortly afterwards by change in local government boundaries. It may, therefore, be found best to give effect to recommendations from the Parliamentary Boundary Commission based on the local government boundaries existing at the date of this review, and subsequently to make adjustments as a result of further reports submitted from time to time by the Boundary Commissions under the standing machinery for which the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1944, makes provision.

Mr. Keeling: Is it not very unsatisfactory and very unsettling to all concerned if Parliamentary redistribution is carried out without consideration of probable changes in local government boundaries, and with the result that the work would have to be done all over again? Why cannot Parliamentary redistribution be postponed for, say, a year, until the Local Government Commission's views have been obtained?

Mr. Ede: The reason is that after conferences with representatives of both Boundary Commissions concerned, I am satisfied that no substantial number of local government boundary decisions will have been reached within a year. It is very desirable that we should first have the review of Parliamentary constituencies, which will have to be done by a Bill as soon as possible, and thereafter, as the Local Government Boundary Commission representations are received, the amendments by Order in Council, which was the arrangement made by the last Parliament, can be carried through. The whole consideration of this matter makes me think that the sooner we have the Bill the better, so that the subsequent proceedings can be carried through without undue pressure on Parliamentary time.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an approximate date when he hopes to introduce the Bill?

Mr. Ede: That will depend upon the date on which His Majesty's Government receives the report from the Boundary Commissions.

Sir W. Smithers: When does the right hon. Gentleman hope to receive that report?

Mr. Turton: As the General Election is not to take place until 1st April, 1950, surely there is no hurry about it?

Mr. Ede: Without accepting the date, which seems to me to be rather early, I commend that suggestion to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling).

PRIVATE UNIFORMS, TRAFALGAR SQUARE MEETING

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has considered the police report that private uniform was worn in the recent protest procession on Palestine to Trafalgar Square; and if he is satisfied that the stipulations of Section 1 of the Public Order Act. 1936, have been fully maintained.

Mr. Ede: I am informed that among those taking part in the procession were some young people wearing the dress of the Jewish Youth Movement. As regards the second part of the Question, the hon. and gallant Member may be assured that the Commissioner of Police will take any necessary steps to enforce the provisions of the Section to which he refers.

Major Legge-Bourke: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Jewish youth uniform is considered to have any political significance or not?

Mr. Ede: That really is not a matter for me to decide, but for the courts.

CHILD CARE (COMMITTEE'S REPORT)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how soon he expects to receive the Report of the Curtis Committee about the care of children deprived of normal home life.

Mr. Ede: I understand that the committee, which has spared no pains to complete as speedily as possible the wide inquiry entrusted to it, has reached the final stages in the preparation of its report and hopes to present it in a few weeks time.

ARRESTED MAN (SUICIDE)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that a prisoner, called William Hatch, recently shot himself fatally while being escorted from the cells at Old Street police station to a prison van; why was this prisoner allowed firearms and ammunition; and if he will take steps to prevent such occurrences in future.

Mr. Ede: This man managed to conceal on his person a very small pistol which was already loaded. At the inquest, full inquiry was made about the searching of the prisoner, and the coroner said that he did not regard the failure to find the pistol as reflecting adversely on the police officer concerned. The failure is much regretted, but the circumstances do not indicate any general defect in the arrangements for the searching of prisoners.

Mr. Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this touches a very important principle, namely, that prisoners in the custody of the police should be protected from violence not only by others but also by themselves?

Mr. Ede: That is a general principle to which I can give cordial support.

Mr. Gallacher: Will not the Minister make a real inquiry into this, because in my experience, any time I was in I could not keep even a crumb of tobacco?

Mr. Ede: In dealing with convicted persons, the police do have regard to the previous record of the prisoner.

MAINTENANCE ORDERS (NON-COMPLIANCE)

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of cases notified during the present year where court orders have been made against husbands for maintenance of their wives and

children and where the payments have not been met.

Mr. Ede: ; I regret that this information is not available.

Mr. Shepherd: Is it not a fact that the number of persons is large and that the police have no responsibility to seek these men any more than in an ordinary case of a summons for debt, and the ease with which it can be evaded is a temptation to increase the number?

Mr. Ede: There are a number of men who desire to evade their appropriate responsibility. The police do all they possibly can when a summons has been obtained to trace the person, but quite frequently very effective steps have been taken by the culprit to conceal all traces that will enable him to be followed.

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Personal Case

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that Mr. Douglas J. Rennie, 97, Centre Street, Kelty, Fife, aged 29, after five years' service in the Army, from January, 1940, to March, 1945, during which period his left leg was amputated, has been refused pension on the grounds that the disease from which he is suffering is not attributable to, nor aggravated by, war service; and, as Mr. Rennie is unfit to work, if he will reconsider this case with a view to awarding a pension.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Wilfred Paling): As I have explained to the hon. Member in letters sent to him on 12th June and 3rd July, the amputation of the left leg during service was part of the necessary treatment for an organic bone disease, which my medical advisers were satisfied was unrelated to Mr. Rennie's war service. My decision was upheld by the pensions appeal tribunal.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that when the country was in need this man gave ready and loyal service, and now that he is in such great need following his terrible afflictions, will the country not give some service to him? Why should the Minister continue this sort of mean, Tory, contemptible behaviour towards the lads who served the country so well?

Mr. John Lewis: Does not the Minister think that it is about time that he accepted the principle, "Fit for service, fit for pension"?

Mr. Paling: That has been turned down by the Government on previous occasions. I have to give pensions according to the Royal Warrant and I have no power to go outside it.

Mr. Gallacher: Change it.

Mr. Pritt: Can the Minister tell us whether there is not discretionary power expressly given in the Royal Warrant which enables him to go behind it?

Mr. Berry: Would the Minister ascertain whether his medical advisers are as competent as the medical advisers who passed this man as fit for service in the Army?

Mr. Paling: This case has been before not only my medical advisers but those of the tribunal, and I might add that the principle underlying this case has also been before the High Court.

Dr. Taylor: Is it not an unfortunate fact that many of these organic bone diseases are not attributable to war service?

Mr. Hoy: Would the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this decision in view of the decision given in the Scottish law courts within the last few days?

Mr. Paling: I am considering it, but whether it relates to this is a different matter.

Mr. M. Lindsay: Is not this treatment of an ex-Serviceman at variance with the propaganda of the hon. Gentleman's party at the last Election?

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice of my intention to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Disablement (Earning Capacity)

Captain Baird: asked the Minister of Pensions if he will instruct pensions boards to take into consideration in granting awards the amount of incapacity caused and the fact that incapacity varies according to the employment of the pensioner.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Under the provisions of the Royal Warrant, disablement pensions are based on the degree of disablement without taking into account wages or earning "capacity in any specific trade or occupation. As a result, most men receive a pension in addition to normal wages. To relate the assessment to employment would lead to inequalities, and would not be of general advantage to pensioners.

Captain Baird: If I cite the case of a dentist who contracted cocaine dermatitis as a result of his war service, and who is now incapacitated from following his profession, will my right hon. Friend consider it?

Mr. Paling: I cannot give an answer in regard to a specific case, but we tried to meet the position to some extent some months ago when we introduced a hardship allowance by which means a man who has a partial pension, who cannot get back into his normal employment and who has to accept lower paid employment, can receive us. 3d. a week in addition to his pension.

Appeal Tribunals (Special Arbitration)

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in view of the misgivings expressed by the Lord Justice Clerk and the judges of the Second Division of the Court of Sessions in giving judgment on 19th July as to the way in which Pensions Appeal Tribunals are interpreting, or failing to interpret, the Royal Warrant to the detriment of appellants, he will introduce legislation at an early date to enable any appellant whose claim has been rejected by an existing tribunal to lodge a further appeal to be heard by a new tribunal.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I will, with permission, make a statement at the close of Questions on the matter raised by the hon. and gallant Member.

Later—

In consultation with my Central Advisory Committee, and in the light of representations made to me by the British Legion and other interested parties, I have given careful consideration to the situation arising from recent judgments in the High Court in England and in the Court of Session in Scotland. In order to ensure that in past cases there may be


no grounds for any feeling of injustice, I am prepared to receive applications from those persons who, having had their appeals disallowed by a pensions appeals tribunal before 1st August, 1946, are of the opinion that their claims would have succeeded had they fallen for consideration after the promulgation of the judgments in question. My Department will examine these applications, applying the criterion whether the claims if now falling for consideration would, in the light of the judgments, be likely to succeed on merit. Where it is so satisfied entitlement to pension will be admitted. Where the claim should still, in the opinion of my Department, be rejected it will be open to the applicant to ask that his case should be referred to a special Arbitration Tribunal which the Government will set up. This Tribunal will be outside the scope of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal Act and references to it will be on the basis that both the appellant and the Ministry will accept its decision as final and conclusive. If the appeal is allowed the case will thenceforth be treated in the same way as one allowed by a statutory tribunal. Any award, whether made on review by the Ministry or after reference to the Arbitration Tribunal, will take effect from the date which would have been applicable had the original appeal to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal succeeded.

In submitting his case to the Ministry, the applicant will have the right to adduce new evidence, and in the event of a reference to the Arbitration Tribunal, both sides will have the right to produce further evidence and to recast the presentation of their case. My Department will deal as quickly as possible with applications, but hon. Members will appreciate that it will take some time to dispose of the cases which go to the Tribunal.

Lieut-Commander Hutchison: Will legislation be required to do what is proposed? If so, will it be introduced as soon as possible after the Recess?

Mr. Paling: I do not think that legislation will be required.

Mr. Thomas Macpherson: While thanking the Minister for the statement which he read to the House, and which will be received with great satisfaction by thousands of ex-Servicemen in this country,

may I ask him whether the right to go before the High Court will still remain, even after cases have been before the special tribunal, because if cases had not gone to the High Court, the step now proposed to do justice to the men would not have been taken?

Mr. Paling: There will be no appeal to the High Court in arbitration cases that come before me or go before the arbitration tribunal.

Mr. Osbert Peake: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us anything about the constitution of the proposed special Arbitration Tribunal, bearing in mind that the Statute which deals with ordinary appeals provides for representation by a serving colleague of the appellant?

Mr. Paling: Yes, Sir. We propose that the constitution shall be similar to the statutory tribunal already existing.

Mr. Gallacher: May I ask the Minister very seriously whether, instead of these tribunals and super-tribunals and all this complication, he would consider changing the Royal Warrant and laying down the principle, "Fit for service, fit for pension"?

Mr. Paling: I have answered that question on numerous occasions. The proposal, "Fit for service, fit for pension," has been considered not only by this Government but by previous Governments, and has definitely been turned down on each occasion.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman issuing a statement for the guidance of applicants as to the method to be followed in submitting their applications for renewed consideration?

Mr. Paling: I think that all that they will have to do will be to let us know that they wish their cases to be reconsidered. Whether we can take special steps to let them know about this matter I do not know, but interest in it is pretty widespread. The hon. Member may be aware of the fact that the ex-Servicemen's organisations are particularly interested in this subject. That may be sufficient.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Will there be the same appeal to the High Court as there is from any other tribunal?

Mr. Paling: No, Sir.

Squadron-Leader Fleming: Will the Minister take steps to see that all men whose appeals have been turned down since August last year will be notified first, through his own Department?

Mr. Paling: I have looked into that proposal and I do not think it is possible. The answer I gave to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) just now covers that point.

Mr. Medlicott: Will the Minister draw the attention of his colleague the Minister of Health to this example of the immense importance of the judiciary to the rights of the individual?

Sir T. Moore: What will be the composition of the new tribunal?

Mr. Paling: A lawyer or barrister as chairman, a doctor and a layman, the latter according to the particular class of ex-Serviceman to be considered.

General Sir George Jeffreys: In view of the great importance of applicants to this super-tribunal having real confidence in those who are to judge their cases, will the Minister ensure that the chairman shall be not merely a barrister but a lawyer of such legal experience and standing as will command the utmost confidence among all concerned?

Mr. Paling: I am very anxious to ensure that that shall be so.

Mr. Mitchison: Will there be a similar condition as there is now, in regard to an appeal to the High Court?

Mr. Paling: No, Sir.

Mr. J. Lewis: What is to prevent an applicant from appealing to the High Court?

Mr. Paling: If an applicant in this class of case comes before us we expect him to agree that after he has gone to this special tribunal that should be an end of the matter.

Suicide Cases

Mr. J. L. Williams: asked the Minister of Pensions how many claims for a pension in the last seven years from the dependants of Servicemen who had committed suicide have been refused on the ground that death was neither due nor hastened by war service.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Precise figures are not available but I estimate that, in the

period referred to, between 1,800 and 1,900 such claims have been received. Of these, in over 700 pension has been awarded, leaving about 1,100 in which pension has been refused.

Mr. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great dissatisfaction with regard to this matter, because it is felt that the unbalancing of the minds of many of these men is linked up with the fact that they are away from their families on active service? Will he have the position considered?

Mr. Paling: We do deal with this type of case sympathetically as is witnessed by the fact that over 700 have received pensions.

Special Clothing Allowance

Mr. Walter Fletcher: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider increasing the inadequate special clothing allowance where artificial limbs are used, to bring this allowance into line with present-day cost of clothing.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Present experience does not lead me to think that the existing rates of allowance are in general inadequate to meet the additional expense arising from extra wear and tear on clothing caused by wearing artificial limbs.

Mr. Fletcher: As this is the last oral Question to the Minister today, would he show a little more consideration of the real hardship this entails to men who have lost limbs, and not try to hide behind the smoke screen of official, cold, criticism of people who are suffering?

Mr. Paling: We have regard to real hardship in so far as we have now established £5 and £3, as against nothing before.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Council House Sale, Birmingham

Mr. Shurmer: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that in the city of Birmingham last week a subsidised council house built 15 years ago at a cost of £450 was advertised for sale at £1,200; and, in view of this and other cases, if he will take steps to prevent persons making large profits at the expense of public funds.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): The house which I think my hon. Friend has in mind was built by the Birmingham Corporation in 1924, under the provisions of the Housing Act of 1923. The corporation sold the house in 1927, and it then became indistinguishable from any other house in private ownership. For the reasons which I gave in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for South Portsmouth (Sir J. Lucas), on 16th May, I cannot hold out any prospect of legislation controlling the selling price of houses.

Mr. Shurmer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the city of Birmingham, and in other parts of the country, this matter is causing great indignation? We have 43,000 applicants for houses, and they are continually being exploited in respect of subsidised and privately owned houses. Will not my right hon. Friend do something to stop this ramp of selling houses at high prices?

Mr. Bevan: My hon. Friend's Question refers to one house, which was sold in 1927. The consent of the Minister has to be obtained before a house for which a subsidy has been paid is sold. Nevertheless, I frown very much on this practice.

Ipswich

Mr. Stokes: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that, to complete the Ipswich Housing Scheme, a further 390 acres of land will be required at a total estimated cost of £535,000, including roads and sewers; and if he will state the rateable value of the land and give a separate figure for the cost of roads and sewers.

Mr. Bevan: I understand that the Ipswich Town Council are contemplating the purchase for housing of a site of 390 acres. The greater part of the site is agricultural land and de-rated, and the rateable value of the rest is £158. No proposal has yet been submitted to me, and I am not in a position to give the information asked for in the latter part of the Question.

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this land, which has been derated for so long, is now valued at 3,000 times its normal rateable value? Is it not time the Government took steps to stop this racket?

Mr. Bevan: The result of communal activity is to raise the value of land everywhere, and next Session I hope there will be a Bill to deal with the matter.

Mr. Stokes: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the total cost of the Ipswich Council's 5,000 houses plan is estimated at £5,707,755; and whether, as the interest on the money raised to finance the scheme will amount, in total, to £5,108,798, he will consider arranging for an interest-free loan as no question of risk is attached to this venture.

Mr. Bevan: Any concession in lending to a local authority free of interest or at a rate of interest less than that at which the Government can borrow would constitute a form of concealed subsidy. The Government policy on subsidies for housing is embodied in the Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1946, which provides subsidies designed to enable local authorities to provide new houses to let at reasonable rents.

Mr. Stokes: While not wishing to ask the Government to do anything regarding concealment, may I ask my right hon. Friend why, as we now control the monetary system, we should continue this outworn process, whereby citizens are bound to support for ever interest on money which did not exist until it was required for their needs?

Mr. Bevan: My hon. Friend, with his usual robust vigour, is aiming at the wrong target. This is not a matter for me, but for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Stokes: I know, but will my right hon. Friend, with his usual force, make representations to the Chancellor about it?

Rural Housing

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Health whether the Rural Housing Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee has issued a further report following their interim report of January last; and, if so, whether he proposes to make it available to hon. Members.

Mr. Bevan: No further report has yet been received from the Rural Housing sub-committee.

Furniture (Local Authorities' Power)

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Minister of Health if he will consider empowering and encouraging local authorities to supply furniture to ex-Service-men and others setting up house for the first time, if so desired, and to make an appropriate additional rent charge to cover the cost.

Mr. Bevan: Local authorities already have power under Section 72 (2) of the Housing Act, 1936, to provide furniture for their houses and may fix the rent at a figure sufficient to cover the cost.

Mr. Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend consider encouraging local authorities to make more active use of this power than they are doing at present?

Mr. Bevan: I hope the attention of local authorities will be called to this Question and answer.

Orpington

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the shortage of housing in the Orpington area, he will give increased facilities for private builders to supplement the programme of the local authority in accordance with the arrangements announced in his Circular 92/46

Mr. Bevan: Any proposal received from the Orpington Urban District Council for the erection of houses under the arrangements described in Circular 92/46 will receive immediate and sympathetic consideration.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when we shall have the next lot of figures showing the respective achievements of private builders and local authorities?

Mr. Bevan: I thought the right hon. Gentleman was aware, as almost every other citizen is aware, that they get them at the end of each month.

Mr. Hudson: For the information of citizens of the country and of the House, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether they will show a drop compared with last year?

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman might await the figures, but I would point out to him that we are giving slightly more information and more houses than the party opposite did.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a large deputation from the Orpington area waited on his Parliamentary Secretary—

Mr. Stokes: Large by weight or by numbers?

Sir W. Smithers: —and that the real reason for the delay was the inability of four Ministries to agree? Is he also aware that over 2,400 families are waiting for accommodation and that private builders are not allowed to get on with the job of building houses?

Mr. Bevan: In my reply I have already informed the hon. Member that private builders can build as many houses as they like to build for the Orpington District Council, if the Council will make application.

Land Acquisition, Malton

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that there is considerable apprehension in Malton at the proposal to acquire land for a police headquarters at Quarry Bank, Old Malton, and that the Malton Urban District Council is opposing the proposal; and whether he will hold a public local inquiry at Malton so that the objections to this proposal may receive due consideration.

Mr. Bevan: This matter has come before me on appeal under Defence Regulation 68CA against the refusal of the Malton Urban District Council to consent to the use of the premises for non-residential purposes. The appeal is at present under consideration. I do not think that on the particular issue on which the case comes before me it should be necessary to hold a local inquiry.

Mr. Turton: Before the Minister considers the appeal, will he hear the views of the inhabitants of Malton either at a public local inquiry or otherwise?

Mr. Bevan: I shall certainly consider all relevant factors before coming to a decision.

NATIONAL REGISTRATION SERVICE

Sir W. Darling: asked the Minister of Health the cost of the issue of identity cards annually; how many officers are


employed in connection therewith; and at which centres in Great Britain and-Northern Ireland are records kept.

Mr. Bevan: It is not possible to state separately the total number of persons employed in the National Registration service, or the total cost, since the local offices are also food offices, and the same staff does both classes of work. Records are kept at Southport, Edinburgh and Belfast, where a staff of approximately 1,000 is employed at a cost of £235,000 per annum.

Sir W. Darling: Arising out of that unsatisfactory answer, could I have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he will take steps to abolish this system, which was set up by the last Government, and which is now not necessary in peacetime?

Mr. Bevan: I have explained before, that I, personally, find the use of an identity card repugnant, but such cards are very serviceable and must be retained while they are of some use.

Mr. W. J. Brown: If it be the case that there are 1,000 servants of the State employed in the various offices at a total cost of £235,000, does the right hon. Gentleman really regard £235 per head, as a proper figure to pay for the retention of these cards?

Mr. Bevan: That is also a question which is being aimed in the wrong direction.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

Mental Hospitals (Male Nurses)

Mr. Medlicott: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that male nurses in mental hospitals are finding it difficult to gain experience of general nursing so as to enable them to qualify for the General Nursing Certificate; and if he will arrange for greater numbers of male nurses from mental hospitals to be loaned to general hospitals for suitable periods.

Mr. Bevan: I am aware of the difficulty, and in January my Department issued a circular to hospital owning authorities and voluntary hospitals recommending more general employment of male nurses and the introduction of facilities for training where they do not already exist. I have also commended to local authorities and visiting committees the recommendation

of the Mental Nurses sub-committee of the Rushcliffe Committee with regard to the secondment of mental nurses for general training.

Polish Doctors

Sir Jocelyn Lucas: asked the Minister of Health how many Polish military doctors, being repatriated with General Anders' army, will be allowed to practise in this country other than with the Resettlement Corps, in view of the fact that battle casualties no longer occur and the establishment necessary will be smaller.

Mr. Bevan: I am considering this matter, but I am not yet in a position to give the detailed information asked for by the hon. Member.

Atmospheric Pollution, Black Country

Captain Baird: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will consider making a survey of atmospheric pollution in the Black Country.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Regular measurements of atmospheric pollution are made in the Black Country by four local authorities and one commercial firm, as part of the investigation of atmospheric pollution carried out cooperatively between the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, local authorities and other organisations. Special surveys of matter deposited from the air have also been made at Bilston and Walsall.

FAMILY ALLOWANCES (OTHER BENEFITS)

Mr. Tom Smith: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the substitution of family allowances for other forms of children's allowances, as from the date when family allowances start to be payable, will have the effect of reducing the amount at present being drawn by men with two or more children in receipt of children's allowances both under the Workmen's Compensation Acts and also under the Unemployment Insurance Act; and what action he proposes to take.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): Yes, Sir: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. Friend


that with a view to avoiding reduction in the cases to which he refers, an arrangement has been made with the British Employers' Confederation covering the position of men who are or may become entitled to weekly payments under the Workmen's Compensation Acts in respect of an accident occurring before 6th August, 1946, the date when family allowances begin to be payable. The Confederation has undertaken to recommend to employers and their insurers that if, at any time after 6th August, such a man, while entitled to workmen's compensation payments, also draws unemployment benefit because he is capable of work but unable to find suitable employment, payment of supplementary allowances for children under the Workmen's Compensation Acts should be made in respect of any period during which he draws unemployment benefit.

Mr. Smith: May I ask my right hon. Friend, in view of the importance of the reply, to give the widest publicity to it, in the hope that employers outside the Confederation may carry out its terms?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir. I have met a deputation from the Trades Union Congress, and in cooperation with them we shall make it known to the workers. The Employers' Confederation are also going to bring it to the attention of all employers, and we shall do our best to give it the widest publicity.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson - Hicks: Will the right hon. Gentleman cooperate more closely with the Minister of Health in regard to this matter, because the same policy does not seem to be pursued by that Department?

Mr. Messer: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that Circular 114/46, which directs that family allowances under the Family Allowances Act, 1945, must be taken into account in cases where the tuberculosis allowance is paid under Memo. 266/T, is penalising families of tubercular patients; and if he will reconsider this matter with a view to its modification.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: asked the Minister of Health why he is reducing the allowances of beneficiaries under the pulmonary tuberculosis scheme by the amount of the beneficiary's receipts under the Family Allowances Act, 1945;

and when he informed Parliament of his intention to deprive this section of the community of the advantage which the Family Allowances Act would otherwise have granted it.

Mr. Bevan: The point raised by my hon. Friends has had my fullest consideration. The tuberculosis allowances for children are, however, substantially more generous than family allowances, and if the latter were not taken into account the result would be a double payment for the same child, and would be inconsistent with the principles recently confirmed by this House in the National Insurance Bill.

Mr. Messer: Does this mean that in point of fact additional income will be coming into the homes of the fortunate as against the homes of the unfortunate?

Mr. Bevan: That is a consequence of the principles to which I have referred. There could be a question about the adequacy of the allowance itself. There cannot be, under the principles we have accepted, any question of duplication.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson - Hicks: Does the Minister realise that this is imposing a serious hardship upon a very struggling section of the community, and will he explain, if there is justification for them to have the tuberculosis scheme allowance, how that justification is reduced when they have benefited in income with the rest of the people?

Mr. Bevan: There is no additional hardship imposed. The question that has been put is whether there ought to be duplication. I have said that the House has determined that there should not be duplication. If there is inadequacy of allowance, that is an entirely different position.

STATUTORY ORDERS

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that there have been issued more than 1,700 Statutory Orders, which have the force of law, during the first 11 months of peace; if he will give an assurance that steps will be taken to diminish the number of Statutory Orders issued during the period to the end of 1946; and if he will also take steps to reduce the number of Departments and officials at present numbering


some 18 and over 300, respectively, who have the power vested in them to make these Orders.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlec): The reply to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir." In reply to the second part of the Question, the only assurance I can give the hon. Member is that all necessary measures for the rapid reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country will continue to be taken. As regards the third part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedford (Mr, Lennox Boyd) on Tuesday last.

Mr. De la Bère: Does the Prime Minister realise that this should not be a party question, but a question of upholding the prestige and authority of the House of Commons? Further, is he not aware that if the present system is maintained, and worse still, is developed, the authority of the House of Commons must inevitably be undermined?

The Prime Minister: I am sure that, with the hon. Member's assistance, we shall maintain the dignity of the House of Commons.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: With regard to the last part of the Question, can the Prime Minister tell us what precisely is the difficulty in having Ministers in charge of Departments sign these Statutory Rules and Orders, if necessary over an initial signature by one of their subordinates? Why is it necessary for the subordinate chiefs in the Department to sign, and not the Minister?

The Prime Minister: The noble Lord might have raised this matter when a Question was asked on Tuesday last, on which the whole matter was very fully ventilated.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Will the Prime Minister say whether his reply to the second part of the Question is equivalent to an affirmative or a negative?

The Prime Minister: I shall have to look at it.

Mr. De la Bère: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise on the Adjournment this whole question, which is of vital and absolute importance.

CUT GREEN WHEAT, BEDFORD

Mr. Frank Byers: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that no consultations took place between the Ministers of Food and Agriculture when the decision was taken to cut down 16 acres of growing wheat to extend the aeronautical research station near Bedford; and what machinery he intends to set up to obtain better coordination between these two Ministries.

The Prime Minister: It is quite appropriate that decisions in individual cases of this kind shouud be taken on the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and without consultation. I am satisfied that the existing machinery is adequate to ensure the fullest coordination between the Ministers of Food and Agriculture on all broad questions of mutual concern.

Mr. Byers: Is the Prime Minister aware that that opinion is not shared by many hon. Members in all parts of the House? Is he further aware that this is only one of many examples of lack of coordination and consultation between Government Departments? Could he not take the opportunity of the Recess to overhaul the whole machinery of Government?

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: As the Member of Parliament affected by this Question, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, while a great many of my constituents regret the necessity for what has happened, they are quite determined that it shall not be used as part of a Tory ramp?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Did not the Departments concerned understand that this would probably happen—that but for the agreement of the Minister of Agriculture a very much larger area of land now to be cropped would have had to be immobilised, that the wheat concerned is being used for silage, and that the Research Station is of the first importance to the country's welfare?

COMMERCIAL BROADCASTING

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: —To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will


now indicate what steps the Government propose to take to prevent commercial broadcasting in this country, or when he hopes to be in a position to make a statement.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: May I call attention to a misprint in this Question? The phrase "in this country" should read "to this country."

Mr. H. Morrison: I am afraid I must answer the Question on the Paper. No one can originate broadcasts in this country without a licence from the Postmaster-General and the only licence granted will be that to the B.B.C. which is prohibited from broadcasting commercially sponsored programmes.

Mr. Stewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared, now or later, to answer the question as to what steps he is taking to prevent broadcasting to this country from other countries?

Mr. Morrison: I dealt with that in the Debate on the B.B.C. I may add that another factor which influences us in that matter is the opinion of the newspaper proprietors, for which the Government have every consideration. They said last year that the members of the Newspapers Proprietors' Association are opposed in principle to the introduction of any system of sponsored radio broadcasting in this country, they considered it would be detrimental to the interests of the public as listeners, and that it was unnecessary from the point of view of advertisers. That is another contributing factor which does influence the minds of the Government, as we think the views of the newspapers are entitled to be taken into account.

Mr. Stewart: There is some misunderstanding here. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he proposes to prevent Luxemburg broadcasting to this country; does he also propose to prevent any other stations with a similar objective?

Mr. Morrison: If the hon. Gentleman thought that I was worried about the United States of America in this case, he would be wrong. I am concerned with cases where there is specific organisation for the purpose of directing sponsored programmes at this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Infantile Mortality

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the mortality rate-per 1,000 for infants, under one year of age, for the four months ended 30th April, 1946, or other convenient period, in the area for which he is responsible.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): Over the first four months of this year, the infant mortality rate for the British Zone of Germany and the British Sector of Berlin was 111 per 1,000 live births.

Lunatics (Zone Transfers)

Sir W. Darling: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what arrangements are in being for the transfer of lunatics from the Soviet to the British zone and vice versa; and if any totals can be given of the number of persons so transferred.

Mr. J. Hynd: There are no special arrangements of this kind.

Sir W. Darling: Is the Chancellor of the Duchy aware that reports which have reached this country from serving officers state that a train carrying more than 200 lunatics coming from a non-British zone was driven into the British zone where the occupants were abandoned; that the train returned to the zone from which it came, and that no one took charge of these unfortunate and unaccompanied men and women?

Mr. Hynd: I am not aware of the alleged incident. There have in fact been no separate despatches of lunatics from the Russian zone into the British zone or vice versa. There have probably been individual cases where mentally defective people have come in with the other exchanges of population but, of course, lunacy like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Mr. Gallacher: Was this not a deliberate attempt to smuggle Tory votes into Bexley?

Sir W. Darling: Has any organised party exceeding 200 in number come in from a non-British zone and been so abandoned in the British zone? The Minister has been unable to tell the House but I can supply the hon. Gentleman with incontrovertible information.

Mr. Hynd: I should of course be glad to have that information, but I am afraid the hon. Member is misinformed because our information about what has come from the Soviet zone is fairly accurate because it is all checked. The hon. Gentleman may have particulars relating to an incident which originated from some other quarter.

AUSTRIA (DISPLACED PERSONS)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps are being taken to remove the 400,000 displaced persons now in Austria receiving a larger ration, free of all cost, than that accorded to Austrian citizens, who are doing no work even for their own upkeep except that they are supplying the black market and are menacing public security in Austria.

Mr. J. Hynd: I do not admit the implications in the Question. The total of 400,000 would include not only displaced persons proper but all refugees of German nationality or extraction expelled from Austrian territories, a number of whom the Austrian Government do not desire to lose as they represent a valuable addition to Austrian economy.
So far as the British zone is concerned displaced persons do not receive a larger ration than the Austrian citizens, their ration is not free of all cost, they are not exempt from useful work but are in fact directed to work under penalty of imprisonment. They are not considered a menace to public security.
Repatriation of displaced persons is going on and the final dispersal of the residue is a matter which is receiving the urgent attention of His Majesty's Government and U.N.O.

Mr. Freeman: Will my right hon. Friend be willing to meet a representative of the Austrian Government who provided this information, and will he take these facts into account?

Mr. Hynd: I have discussed this matter in the last few days with the President and other representatives of the Austrian Government. They are fully aware of the position, and the information we have at our disposal is accurate.

Captain Francis Noel-Baker: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication

when he thinks it probable that he will be able to abolish these camps in Austria altogether?

Mr. Hynd: It is not possible to give a definite date, but I would point out that the great majority of these people are not in fact in camps in Austria.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Training Centre, North Scotland

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour if he will take steps to set up a training centre in the city of Aberdeen immediately.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): In choosing a site for a centre for the North of Scotland both Aberdeen and Dundee were considered. As a suitable site in Aberdeen could not be found the centre has had to be placed in Dundee.

Dock Workers, Aberdeen

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour how many dockers were unemployed or unable to obtain work, on an average, during the last four weeks for the last period for which figures are available, for the Port of Aberdeen; if he will state the reason for this unemployment and what steps he is taking to obviate it.

Mr. Isaacs: During the four weeks ended 20th July, 1946, the daily average of dock workers registered under the dock labour scheme for Aberdeen for whom work was not available was 153. The question whether the size of the dock labour force needs adjustment is under review.

Liverpool Cotton Exchange Employees

Mr. Marples: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the specialised nature of the duties previously carried out by the former employees of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, he will appoint a special officer in Liverpool to arrange for the placing of the displaced employees in suitable occupations.

Mr. Isaacs: This is now being done by selected officers of the Liverpool Appointments Office who specialise in placing applicants in higher appointments in various industries and professions. This is a more


effective arrangement than having one officer to deal only with these particular applicants.

Mr. Marples: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there are a large number of rather bitter and disappointed displaced employees of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, and will he go into the matter carefully to see that they are given employment?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, and if the hon. Gentleman will give me particulars of any case I will see what can be done to help those concerned.

Mr. Marples: I will do that.

Trainees (Vacancies)

Mr. Marples: asked the Minister of Labour, what arrangements are made for trainees leaving Government training to be placed in jobs on completion of their period of training.

Mr. Isaacs: In general men leaving training establishments are submitted by the centre placing officer in cooperation with the local employment exchange to employers with suitable vacancies. In the case of building trades, trainees continue their training with the employer, and the vacancies to which it is proposed to send men are therefore approved as suitable for purposes of training by a local advisory committee.

Mr. Marples: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that a large number of these trainees leave their training in a very enthusiastic frame of mind, but that when they are unable to find employment they tend to lose their morale, and will he go into the matter to see if he can give them employment immediately?

Mr. Isaacs: I agree with the hon. Gentleman as to the enthusiasm of these men both in training and when they come out, but I would assure him that there are not a large number who cannot be placed. There are some, but this is often due to the fact that in the area concerned the building trade is not quite ready to receive them. It is a problem with which we are very much concerned.

Mr. Marples: If I send the right hon. Gentleman details of particular cases will he look into them?

Mr. Isaacs: Most certainly.

Fair Wages Resolution

Mr. Charles Smith: asked the Minister of Labour if he is yet in a position to state when the new Fair Wages Resolution will be introduced.

Mr. George Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour if he is yet in a position to state when the new Fair Wages Resolution will be introduced.

Mr. Isaacs: I am hoping to introduce the new Fair Wages Resolution soon after the summer Recess.

Expert Labour

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will give a list of the occupations and professions in which the scarcity of expert labour is most acute, indicating in each case the steps being taken by his Department to remedy the deficiency and the date by which the position should be satisfactory.

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot within the limits of a Parliamentary reply detail the many occupations and professions in which such scarcity exists, nor the great variety of steps taken to meet it.

Eastleigh

Mr. Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour the present number of unemployed in Eastleigh., Hampshire; the number of vacancies registered; and the types of vacancies outstanding.

Mr. Isaacs: At 17th June, there were 20 unemployed insured persons on the register at Eastleigh. At 10th July, there were 451 vacancies for men mainly in building and engineering. There were 53 vacancies for women mostly in various services.

Winchester

Mr. George Jeger: asked the Minister of Labour the present number of unemployed in Winchester; the number of vacancies registered; and the types of vacancies outstanding.

Mr. Isaacs: At 17th June, there were 13 unemployed insured persons on the register at Winchester. At 10th July, there were 204 vacancies for men mainly in the building and the motor vehicle and aircraft, etc., industries. There were 233 vacancies for women mostly in various services.

Trade Union Membership

Mr. Raikes: asked the Minister of Labour what instructions have been issued to National Service officers for their guidance in dealing with applications for employment and for permission to dismiss employees on the sole grounds of these employees' membership or non-membership of a particular trade union.

Mr. Isaacs: My officers are instructed that in submitting applicants for employment no distinction should be drawn between members of trade unions and non-members unless an employer has expressly stipulated that he requires a union member or a non-union member. With regard to permission to discharge under the Essential Work Order, no instructions on this point have been issued to national service officers. Their decisions are in any event subject to appeal to a local appeal board.

INFLATION

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps the Government intend to take to deal with the present inflationary tendencies.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I have been asked to reply. I would refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend's replies to the hon. Members for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) and Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) on 7th and 21st May, respectively.

Mr. Shepherd: Can the Financial Secretary tell the House why the pound continues to purchase less and less each day?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: People would say that that was not correct and in any case it is not the question on the Order Paper. If the hon. Gentleman likes to put it down it will be answered, and answered adequately.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Churchill: May I ask the Leader of the House, whether he can give us any idea of the Business for next week?

Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir. The Business will be as follows:
Monday, 29th July—Supply (20th allotted day), Report. The Estimate for the Control Office for Germany and Austria will be considered.
At 9.30 p.m., the Report stage of all outstanding Votes will be put from the Chair.
Consideration of Lords Amendments to the National Insurance Bill and to the Civil Aviation Bill.
Tuesday, 30th July—Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, Debate on Housing, Consideration of Lords Amendments to the New Towns Bill.
Wednesday, 31st July—Committee and remaining stages of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, which we hope will be passed formally.
Afterwards, a Debate will take place on Palestine, on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House. It will be followed by a Motion to approve the Highway Code.
Thursday, 1st August—Conclusion of the Debate on Palestine by about 9 o'clock.
Motions to approve the Acquisition of, Land (Increase of Supplement) Orders.
I will make a further statement, should it be necessary to consider Amendments to any other Bills now in another place, or to bring forward any other Business.
If all necessary Business has been disposed of it is hoped to take the Motion for the Summer Recess on Friday, 2nd August. The proposed date of reassembly in the autumn and the Business to be taken during the first week, will be announced next week. It may be convenient for me to remind the House that we have undertaken to allocate two days for a Debate on India at some convenient date after our return.
In addition, I recognise that a further day should be made available for a discussion of Scottish affairs. Normally, two allotted Supply days are devoted to Scottish Estimates, but this has not always been the case. I hope that the proposal to allocate a further day for a Debate on Scottish affairs in the autumn will be agreeable to Scottish Members.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the fact that on Monday there will be one of the


rare occasions on which we have discussed the vitally important subject of the control of Germany and Austria, and in view of the fact that I anticipate that a very large number of hon. Members will wish to speak, he will consider suspending the Rule so that we may have as long as possible for the Debate?

Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that is not possible because the Guillotine falls at 9.30 p.m. on the outstanding Votes; moreover, my recollection is that there was another day upon which the subject was debated.

Mr. Clement Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that on a recent Friday the Minister of Agriculture announced, without any opportunity for Debate, certain increases in the prices of agricultural produce? There has undoubtedly been a great deal of dissatisfaction with regard to that announcement and the House has had no opportunity whatever of discussing it. May we be assured that an early opportunity will be given when we return from the Recess of debating this very important matter?

Mr. Morrison: I appreciate the point raised. Things are going to be fairly tight when we come back, but that matter might be raised through the usual channels and we might have a talk about it.

Dr. Stephen Taylor: Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope of an opportunity for discussing the report of the Committee on Economic and Social Research when the House returns?

Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that is not very likely.

Mr. Henry Strauss: May I ask the Leader of the House, in regard to the proposed Motion to approve the Highway Code, whether he is aware that that Code contains quite obviously a number of mistakes, so that at some points it says the exact opposite of what it means? I thought that if he really proposed to ask the House to approve it in its present form, he would perhaps like to have notice that that Business is certainly controversial.

Mr. Morrison: I understood that this was a very peaceful matter. It sounds as if we might have a most interesting speech from the hon. and learned Mem-

ber if he catches Mr. Speaker's eye. I have no doubt that the Minister of Transport will take note of what he has said. I gather that it is rather urgent and important that this should be approved.

Mr. Strauss: I am only calling attention to the defects as a matter of courtesy. I think these are matters which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport will certainly like to put right. It would surely be the greatest mistake to approve the Highway Code in a form which is wrong and will be laughed at by the courts.

Mr. Morrison: I understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman has been good enough to inform the Minister of Transport. They are drafting points He will be glad to know that the Minister of Transport will be able to meet him on most of the points which he has kindly notified to him.

Sir W. Smithers: Can the right hon. Gentleman suggest the day on which the House will reassemble after the Summer Recess?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. I hope to inform the House next week. I thought that the House would be happy in knowing today the date on which we propose that we should adjourn.

Major Legge-Bourke: With regard to Wednesday's Business, can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication what form the Debate is to take and whether, as is probable, the Government will have a statement ready as regards the policy they are going to adopt as a result of the talks now going on in London? Can we have some indication whether the Government will make any statement on how these talks are going?

Mr. Morrison: I cannot yet be quite sure. The hon. and gallant Gentleman may take it that, if at all possible, the Government will give some indication of their views and policy in the light of the talks to which he has referred, but it is not entirely within our control. It is a reasonable request that we should try to-do so, and I can assure him that the Government will do their very best to meet his request in that matter.

Captain MacLeod: Can an early opportunity be given for a discussion on the Government's afforestation policy?

Mr. Morrison: I do not know. I rather thought that was one of the subjects suggested earlier for a Supply day, but it is no good talking about Supply days now because they will soon all be gone. I am afraid that I cannot see any immediate prospects of that.

ANGLO-CANADIAN WHEAT AGREEMENT

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): A contract has been signed between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of Canada for the purchase by the former of Canadian wheat over the four years beginning 1st August, 1946.
The Agreement provides that the United Kingdom will purchase and the Canadian Government will supply the following quantities each year:

1946–47— 160 million bushels.
1947–48— 160 million bushels.
1948–49— 140 million bushels.
1949–59— 140 million bushels.

The Canadian Government have undertaken that in the event of good harvests larger quantities would be provided in the first two years.
Part of the quantity of wheat specified in the contract will be supplied in the form of flour to the following amounts:

1946–47— 500,000 tons.
1947–48— 400,000 tons. In each of these two years there will be an additional quantity up to 140,000 tons, dependent upon the outturn of the crop.
1948–49—A minimum of 300,000 tons, actual tonnage to be negotiated by 1st July, 1947.
1949–50—A minimum of 300,000 tons, actual tonnage to be negotiated by 1st July, 1948.

The price which the United Kingdom Government undertake to pay for the wheat supplied is as follows:

1946–47—a fixed price of $1.55 per bushel.
1947–48—a fixed price of $1.55 per bushel.
1948–49—a minimum price of $1.25 per bushel, the actual price to be negotiated by 31st December, 1947.
1949–50—a minimum price of $1 per bushel, the actual price to be negotiated by 31st December, 1948.

The contract provides that its terms and conditions shall be subject to any modification or amendment which may be necessary to bring it into conformity with any international agreements or arrangements later concluded to which both Governments are parties. Nothing in the pro-

posed Wheat Agreement will affect decisions which may be taken on the basis of recommendations of the International Emergency Food Counpil.
The contract is based upon commercial considerations of mutual interest. It ensures to the United Kingdom substantial quantities of wheat during the expected period of shortage at prices below those which would be payable were there to be a free market at the present time. The price specified in the contract for the first year is 30 per cent. below the current United States price and still more below the open market price in Argentina. This is the commercial advantage which the United Kingdom secures. In the later period of the contract Canada receives the advantage of a guaranteed market, and a minimum price. In determining the actual price in the last two years regard will be had to the extent to which the agreed price for the first two years falls below the world price for that period. Her farmers are, therefore, protected from crippling losses should there be a world slump in wheat prices. This is the commercial advantage which Canada secures. The full text of the contract will be published in due course.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Is it not possible, even now, to see that some form of maximum price in the last two years of the running of the contract is achieved? Otherwise there is an unlimited liability on the Government of this country, and the food subsidy will increase with leaps and bounds if the maximum price is too high.

Mr. Strachey: No, I do not think that we could possibly alter the terms of the contract now, and, in any case, I think the fears expressed by the hon. Member are quite groundless. I should be most surprised if the world price of wheat was of any such character in those second two years.

Mr. Boothby: May I ask the Minister whether his attention has been drawn to a statement by the Secretary-General of the International Emergency Food Council that this agreement can be overruled by the Council, and will he state whether there is any truth in that statement?

Mr. Strachey: I would like to say two things about that. In the first place, 160,000,000 bushels — the maximum annual figure mentioned in the contract


—is well within our essential import needs and, in practice, I should think that the contingency of any conflict between the contract and the International Emergency Food Council's opinions or discussions was extremely remote. Secondly, if I may, I would like to say a word about the International Emergency Food Council procedure in this matter, because I think it is important. It is, first, vital to understand that the International Council has no overriding authority. In the case of all commodities, this Council can only make recommendations. It is for the member Governments to take action on those recommendations, and there have been cases—though they are cases to be deplored—where member Governments of the old Combined Food Board, of which this is merely the successor, have not seen their way to implement those recommendations. That is true of all commodities, but in the special case of cereals, the International Emergency Food Council does not even make recommendations. This arrangement was reached to meet the special wishes of the United States Government, the Canadian Government, and the other exporting Governments. In the case of cereals, the cereals committee of the, International Emergency Food Council simply meets and discusses, and the exporting wheat countries programme their exports in the light of those discussions, but without even any recommendations from the cereals committee of the International Emergency Food Council. As to this contract and its relationship with the International Emergency Food Council, as I say, I believe there is no question of conflict between the two, but, of course, clearly the only people who could vary the terms of the contract are the two parties to it—the United Kingdom and the Canadian Government.

Mr. Stokes: Will the flour supplied be the same as the white poison put out by the millers' combines before the war, or will it be the present extraction ruling in this country? May I have an answer to that?

Mr. Strachey: I could not admit the description which the hon. Member gives of flour of lower extraction rate, though the one ruling at present—

Mr. Stokes: But what is it going to be?

Mr. Strachey: It will be probably a rather lower extraction rate than that ruling in this country today.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: While welcoming the announcement as being of advantage to both countries, may I ask two questions merely for information? First, is a similar agreement to be negotiated with Australia, our other big provider of cereals? Second, how does the amount of 160,000,000 bushels tally with the proportions that were originally agreed in the International Wheat Agreement that was signed some three or four years ago between ourselves, the Argentine, the United States and Canada?

Mr. Strachey: On the first part of the question, we have not been approached by the Australian Government at the moment for any such agreement. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have long-term agreements with the Australian Government for both meat and dairy produce, but in the matter of wheat we have not been approached by them. In regard to the second part of the question, there is no conflict between this amount and anything under the International Wheat Agreement.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Could my right hon. Friend give any estimate as to what the effect of this very welcome announcement is likely to be on the duration of bread rationing in this country?

Mr. Strachey: I would say at once that the agreement in itself has no direct bearing on the duration of bread rationing— that is much more a question of the final outcome of the Canadian and, indeed, of other crops, which we shall know in a few weeks now. However, I would say this, that these arrangements, which I believe to be of the greatest importance both to ourselves and our Canadian friends—and what firm friends they have been to us— I believe that this agreement has an enormous bearing on our determination never to get back again into the difficult situation which faces us today.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: Would the Minister say what the proportion of the quantity to be imported as flour is to total figures? Could he say why it has been agreed to import flour and not the whole wheat, to the great disadvantage of our livestock?

Mr. Strachey: I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Member the actual percentage, but it is a very small one. In the past we have always imported considerable quantities of Canadian flour. At the moment, in the first two years it is convenient for us to do so and, as the hon. Member will notice, in the second two years the amount of flour to be imported drops.

Mr. Baldwin: May I ask the Minister if, in future, when giving out these commodity prices, it will be possible to give us the figures in hundredweights and tons rather than in bushels, which vary in weight from country to country and do not give us the right idea of what we have got? Would he say the price per ton of that wheat delivered in this country?

Mr. Strachey: The bushel is defined actually in the contract, as follows:

A bushel shall be of the weight of 60 lbs. avoirdupois.
I could not agree with him more that bushels are a most confusing measure, and I should like to see them avoided in this matter.

Mr. Drayson: Can the Minister say whether this contract is to be satisfied in U.S. dollars, and what proportion of the American Loan will be used to pay for this wheat?

Mr. Strachey: The wheat will be paid for in Canadian dollars, and no quantity or proportion of the American Loan will, therefore, be used in paying for it.

NEW MEMBER SWORN

Daniel Granville West, esquire, for the County of Monmouth (Pontypool Division).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered:
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Supplementary Estimates for New Services may be considered in Committee of Supply and Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock; and that if the first three proposed Resolutions shall have been agreed to by the Committee of Supply before half-past Nine o'Clock, the Chairman shall proceed to put forthwith the Questions which he is directed to put at half-past Nine o'Clock, by paragraph 6 of Standing Order No. 14, as

modified by the Order of the House of 12th April.—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put.
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]

The House divided: Ayes, 247; Noes, 119.

Division No. 271.]
AYES.
4.2 p.m.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Edelman, M.
McAllister, G.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
McEntee, V. La T.


Allen, Scholefield (Crews)
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
McGhee, H. G.


Alpass, J. H.
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Mack, J. D.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Ewart, R.
Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)


Attewell, H. C.
Fairhurst F.
Maclean, N. (Govan)


Awbery, S. S.
Farthing, W. J.
McLeavy, F.


Ayies, W. H.
Foot, M. M.
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)


Ayrlon Gould, Mrs. B.
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Macpherson T. (Romford)


Bacon, Miss A.
Gibbins, J.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Baud, Capt. J.
Gibson, C. W.
Mann, Mrs. J.


Balfour, A.
Gilzean, A.
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)


Barstow, P. G.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Mathers, G.


Battley, J. R.
Goodrich, H. E.
Mayhew, C. P.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Messer, F.


Benson, G.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Mitchison, Maj. G. R.


Berry, H.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Monslow. W.


Bing, G. H. C.
Grey, C. F.
Montague, F.


Binns, d.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Moody, A. S.


Bowen, R.
Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Gruffydd, Prof. W. J.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Guest, Dr. L. Haden
Moyle, A.


Bramall, E. A.
Gunter, Capt. R. J.
Nally, W.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Guy, W. H.
Naylo'r, T. E.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Haire, Flt.-Lieut, J. (Wycombe)
Neal, H. (Claycross)


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Hall, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Aberdare)
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Hardman, D. R.
Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)


Burden, T. W.
Hardy, E. A.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)


Burke, W. A.
Harris, K. Wilson
Noel-Buxton, Lady


Byers, Frank F.
Harrison, J.
O'Brien, T.


Chamberlain, R, A.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Oliver, G. H.


Champion. A. J.
Haworth, J.
Orbach, M.


Chater, D.
Henderson, Joseph (A'dwick)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworlh)


Chelwynd, Capt. G. R.
Hicks, G.
Parker, J.


Cluse, W. S.
Hobson, C. R.
Parkin, B. T.


Cocks, F. S.
Holman, P.
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Collick, P.
House, G.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Collindridge, F.
Hoy, J.
Pearson, A.


Collins, V. J.
Hubbard, T.
Peart, Capt. T. F.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Perrins, W.


Cook, T. F.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Piratin, P.


Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Popplewell, E.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Corvedale, Viscount
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Pritt, D. N.


Crawley, A.
Irving, W. J.
Proctor, W. T.


Crossman, R. H. S.
Janner, B.
Pryde, D. J.


Dairies, P.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)
Randall, H. E.


Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Keenan, W.
Ranger, J.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Kendall, W. D.
Rees-Williams, D. R


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Kenyon, C.
Reeves, J.


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Davies S. 0. (Merthyr)
Kinley, J.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Deer, G.
Kirby, B. V.
Robens, A.


Delargy, Captain H. J
Lang, G.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Diamond, J.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Rogers, G. H. R.


Dobbie, W.
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Sargood, R.


Dodds, N, N.
Leslie, J. R.
Scott-Elliot, W.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Levy, B. W.
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A.


Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Lewis, J. (Bolton)
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Logan, D. G.
Shurmer, P.


Durbin, E. F. M.
Lyne, A. W.
Skeffington, A. M.


Dye, S.
McAdam, W.
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.




Skinnard, F. W.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnat)
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Smith, C. (Colchester)
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)
West, D. G.


Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)
Wigg, Colonel G. E.


Smith, T. (Normanton)
Thurtle, E.
Wilkes, L.


Solley, L. J.
Timmons, J.
Wilkins, W. A.


Sorensen, R. W.
Tolley, L.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Soskice, Maj. Sir F.
Usborne, Henry
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Sparks, J. A.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Stamford, W.
Wadsworth, C.
Williamson, T.


Steele, T.
Walker, G. H.
Willis, E.


Stewart, Capt. Michael (Fulham, E.)
 Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)
Wise, Major F. J.


Stokes, R. R
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)
Wyatt, Maj. W.


Strachey, J.
Warbey, W. N.
Yates, V. F.


Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Watkins, T. E.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Stress, Dr. B.
Watson, W. M.
Zilliacus, K.


Swingler, S.
Weitzman, D.



Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Simmons and Mr. Hannan.




NOES.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Hare, Hn. J. H. (Woodb'ge)
Osborne, C.


Aitken, Hon. Max
Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O


Aster, Hon. M.
Haughton, S. G.
Pickthorn, K.


Baldwin, A. E.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C
Ponsonby, Cot. C. E


Barlow, Sir J.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Raikes, H. V.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Hogg, Hon. Q.
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Beechman, N. A.
Holmes, Sir J, Stanley (Harwich)
Renton, D.


Birch, Nigel
Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Hutchison, Lt.Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Robinson, Wing-Comdr. Roland


Boothby, R.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Sanderson, Sir F.


Bossom, A. C.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Savory, Prof. D. L.


Bower, K.
Jennings, R.
Scott, Lard W.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Kerr, Sir J. Graham
Shephard, S. (Newark)


Braithwaite, Lt. Comdr. J. G.
Kingsmill, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Smithers, Sir W.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Snadden, W. M.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Spence, H. Ft.


Butcher, H. w.
Lindsay, M. (Solihull)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)
Linttead, H. N.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Carson, E.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)


Challen, C.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Teeling, William


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lueat-Tooth, Sir H.
Thomson, Sir D. (Aberdeen, S.)


Crowder, Capt. John E.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)


Cuthbert, W. N.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Darling, sir W. Y.
MacLeod, Capt. J.
Touche, G. C.


Davidson, Viscountess
Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)
Vane, W. M. F.


De la Bère, R.
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Donnor, Sqn.-Ldr. P. W.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)


Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)
Marples, A. E.
Wheatley, Colonel M. J.


Drayson, Capt. G. B.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.
Medlicott, F.
Williams, Gerald (Tollbridge)


Fletcher W. (Bury)
Mellor, Sir J.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.
York, C.


Gammans, L. D.
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Morrison, Rt. Hn. W. S. (Cirencester)



Glossop, C. W. H.
Mott-Radolyffe, Maj. C. E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A. G.
Nicholson, G.
Mr. Studholme and Major Conant.


Grimston, R. V.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.



Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[19TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1946; NAVY ESTIMATES, 1946; ARMY ESTIMATES, 1946; AND AIR ESTIMATES, 1946.

CLASS X

CONTROL OFFICE FOR GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

Resolved:
That a sum not exceeding £52,554,310 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for the salaries and expenses of the Control Office for Germany and Austria and the Control Commissions for Germany and Austria including certain supplies and services essential to the Occupation."— Note.—£28,000,000 has been voted on account.]

CLASS II

COLONIAL OFFICE

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That a sum not exceeding £448,752 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for the salaries, and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies." [Note: £250,000 has been voted on account.]

MALAY STATES

4.12 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): It will be for the convenience of the Committee if I make a short statement on the present constitutional situation in Malaya. The origin and purposes of His Majesty's Government's constitutional policy were fully explained by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in the Debates which took place in this House on 8th and 18th March. For that reason, it is only necessary for me to touch on a few of the matters which have a direct bearing on the difficulties which have arisen in Malaya in that endeavour to bring the new policy into operation. It will be remembered that this policy was

fully considered for a long period, and we were convinced that, in all the circumstances, it was the most suitable for Malaya, and that at the conclusion of military administration, the time was most opportune for instituting such changes as were deemed desirable for the future progress of the peoples of Malaya.
The rapid growth of national consciousness fostered during the war, and in the postwar period in these areas in the Far East, made it imperative not only to reconcile the conflicting claims of the indigenous populations and the peoples of alien origin, but also to bring about constitutional unity with a more liberal constitution under the authority of a strong central government, representative of all interests and all peoples, and with control over all matters of common interest and of importance to the welfare and progress of the country as a whole. I know that the criticisms which have been made, both in Malaya and in this country, are not against what are the fundamentals or the main lines of policy, as was indicated by so many hon. and right hon. members in the last Debate. During that Debate my hon. Friend the Undersecretary pointed out that the Order in Council then referred to, was but the framework of the policy, and that if was quite possible to meet many of the criticisms and suggestions—indeed, many of them have since been met, and suggestions have been made whereby many of the points which were mentioned in the Debate could be dealt with. It was also agreed during the Debate to postpone the important question of the qualifications for Malayan Union citizenship, until such time as consultations could take place in Malaya, and the views of all communities had been fully heard. That was the approach which His Majesty's Government made to the criticisms. Notwithstanding those promises, there is still some misunderstanding and opposition to the policy.
The Committee will know that since the Debate, civil administration has been resumed, and the Governor and Governor-General have taken up their posts with a view to inaugurating the new regime. Their first duty was to make contact with Malayan opinion, Rulers and people, to bring them into free and friendly conversations, so that a settlement of the difficulties could be effected. I must say that the Governor-General and


the Governor—two men of high standing and great ability—have been, during the past few months, most untiring in their efforts to bring about a settlement, and I am pleased to say that on the Malay side, which is represented in the discussions by the leaders of the United Malay Organisation as well as the Sultans, there is full appreciation of the broad policy of His Majesty's Government for the development of citizenship and representative institutions as the basis for eventual self-government. Discussions have been and are now taking place between both parties, and I wish to assure the Committee that I will be as helpful and as forthcoming as possible, and meet many of the points raised within the broad lines of policy on which His Majesty's Government are convinced the future progress and happiness of Malaya depends. These discussions are continuing in a keen but friendly atmosphere and I am pleased to say that the old good will for Britain still exists.
There is a very strong desire on both sides for a settlement, which I hope will bring that measure of cooperation which is essential to the success of any plan for the good government of that country. In these circumstances, I ask hon. and right hon. Members not to press me at this stage for any detailed statement of the proposals, since that might well prejudice the discussions which are at this moment proceeding. I am also confident that in the Debate, hon. Members, in their speeches, will refrain from making statements which will in any way be unhelpful to those who are charged with the heavy responsibility of conducting the negotiations.
In a sense, I would have liked it had the Debate taken place some time later, when a definite statement could have been made. But I fully understand the desire of the Committee to be informed of the happenings in that important country, and I am very glad of the opportunity of pointing out again the policy of His Majesty's Government in connection with this matter. We will certainly, let me repeat, do all we possibly can to bring about a settlement, and to work out a policy in full consultation with the leaders and representatives of the people of Malaya. We will ensure that full opportunity is also given to all interested com-

munities in that country to be consulted before decisions are reached. The Committee will be glad to know that the negotiators met yesterday. They are meeting today and I am hopeful that in the course of a few days, or at least a week, I shall have from them some proposals which have been submitted for consideration.
The Committee will be interested to hear something of how Malaya is rehabilitating itself after the long period of Japanese occupation during which the population of Malaya suffered great hardship in many ways, particularly with regard to food and the treatment meted out to them by their Japanese oppressors. During the occupation the population had to live largely on tapioca, which as a staple foodstuff is unpopular and nutritionally inadequate. There are very few of us who would like to think that tapioca was the basic food upon which we had to depend, and I must say that the people of Malaya suffered considerably as a result of having to make this to a very large extent their base food. Today, Malaya is suffering, as most other countries are suffering, from a scarcity of food. Rice, flour, sugar, salt and tinned milk are strictly rationed and I am afraid that the rice ration which has been allocated to Malaya by the International Emergency Food Committee has, so far, been much below the requirements of the people, and the supplies had to be supplemented by flour, and not too much flour at that.

Mr. Pickthorn: May I ask a question? The right hon. Gentleman said the allotments had been inadequate. Can he tell us whether the actual supplies have been much below the allotments?

Mr. Hall: The supplies have been, to a certain extent, below the allotments. Offhand, I should say they are about 80 per cent.

Mr. Pickthorn: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean 20 per cent. below?

Mr. Hall: Yes, the difficulty has arisen mainly because of the difficulties in Burma and Siam. Some of these difficulties are being overcome and I hope that there will be a slight increase—I will not put it any higher than that—in the very low rations of rice and wheat which


have prevailed in Malaya for some time. Malaya as a food producer has a considerable potentiality, though in peacetime it was not self-sufficient. Malaya imported quite a considerable amount of rice which was required—again, mainly, from Burma and Siam. To meet these difficulties a food production committee has been set up, having as its main objective the task of organising all possible measures to increase the local supplies of food. Large financial provision has been made for the purpose of increasing the production of rice particularly, and the large scale mechanical cultivation of rice in suitable areas is taking place. Other assistance is also being given. The fishing industry also has received special attention. We are conducting an expert survey and we hope that the supplies of fish will be increased considerably.
The importance of the speedy rehabilitation of the tin and rubber industries was fully recognised by His Majesty's Government. We are doing all we possibly can to bring this about. Soon after the liberation of Malaya, a well-known expert on base metal mining visited Malaya, and reported on the measures necessary for rehabilitating the tin raining industry, from which the country derived about 20 per cent. of its revenue before the war. As a result of this report, the industry was offered loans by the local government for improved programmes of repair. The loans will be the first charge on the repair assets, and will be set off against a compensation for war damage. The repayment of any of the loan or interest will not commence until a decision has been reached on claims to compensation for war damage, or until 1st January, 1950, whichever is the earlier. Loans on these terms will be available, not only to European tin producers but also to the Chinese. Applications for loans amounting to over £2 million have already been received from the European companies and figures are not yet available of applications from the Chinese. The European companies have placed orders in this country for dredging equipment amounting to £772,000. Eleven dredgers are already in operation and up to 30th June the Ministry of Supply Tin Ore Buying Agency in Malaya, which is at present the sole purchaser of tin, has purchased over 8,000 tons of tin concentrates, and 3,700 tons have been smelted in Malaya itself. A revision of the tin prices is now under

consideration, and I hope that a favourable decision upon this matter will be reached shortly.
The Japanese occupation in Malaya resulted in much less damage to the rubber industry than was anticipated. Some 5 to 8 per cent. of the total planted acreage was destroyed, though damage to buildings and equipment was very severe. Much of the equipment which was removed from the estates and factories is being recovered gradually. Personnel suffered most heavily, and only about one-third of the effective labour force on the estates is now available. Rehabilitation of the industry is being organised by the industry itself through a company which was set up some time ago. This company is open to owners of estates of over 100 acres, whatever their nationality. The industry was given assistance in obtaining the release of trained staff from the Forces and granted the highest priority for passages for them to the Far East.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: When the Minister referred to the rubber producing industry, he appeared to be referring only to the European-owned plantations. In view of the fact that 50 per cent. of the industry is contained in small Asiatic-owned estates, it may create a wrong impression if he continues to use the word "industry" for the large estates only.

Mr. Hall: I was not using the word "industry" to apply to the large estates only. I was coming to the present production of the smaller estates of below 100 acres or indeed those worked by the peasants themselves. As a matter of fact, I think I can give figures to show that the recovery of the smaller estates has been very much quicker than that of the larger estates. I pointed out that equipment work over £1 million had been ordered on behalf of the company from the Ministry of Supply. The Ministry has ordered equipment of about the same value for the smallholders in Malaya. As a result of the energetic steps taken by the industry, with the assistance of the Government, the production of rubber is rising rapidly. It is estimated that it may amount in the second half of this year to something like 160,000 tons. Estimates for 1947 necessarily are tentative, but it is thought that the production of smallholders will reach prewar levels, that of Asiatic estates will reach about 75 per


cent. of their prewar level, and European estates about 60 per cent. The United States of America have undertaken to buy as much rubber from Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and French Indo-China as is allotted to them by the Combined Rubber Committee in Washington at a price of not less than 1s. 2d. a lb. f.o.b. for No. 1 ribbed smoked sheet. His Majesty's Government have undertaken to buy all the rubber required for this country from Malaya at the same price.

Mr. Gammons: When the right hon. Gentleman uses the expression "no less than," does he mean that, if necessary, according to the laws of supply and demand, it can go higher?

Mr. Hall: As far as purchases by the United States and ourselves are concerned, they will be at 1s. 2d. per lb.

Mr. Gammans: A fixed price?

Mr. Hall: Yes, a fixed price of 1s. 2d. per lb.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Up to what date?

Mr. Hall: I will get the date for my hon. Friend. I think it is for a very short period. Other countries are free to buy as much as has been allotted to them at any price they like to pay from the countries named, but it is clear that those countries will have to pay at least as much as His Majesty's Government and the United States. It has been argued that it is extremely short-sighted of His Majesty's Government not to hold out for a higher price, but they were in close contact with the representatives of the rubber producing industry during the negotiations. It was quite clear that it was not altogether in the interests of the rubber producers themselves to hold out for a higher price, in view of the fact that the synthetic rubber industry in the United States is producing large quantities of rubber at a price of about 10d. per lb. at the factory door, while natural rubber will be on sale at 1s. 3d. per lb. at the port of entry in the United States. It is, of course, rightly argued that the natural rubber is much superior to the synthetic rubber. We hope that that is so, but the main question is whether American manufacturers will be prepared to pay this extra amount for natural rubber in view of the fact that they are, at

the present time, producing about 600,000 tons a year of this rubber of ordinary quality plus an extra 100,000 tons of special processed rubber. It is said that, for certain limited purposes, the latter is better than natural rubber. I am not an expert, but that is the advice which I have had given to me. We are hoping that the United States will reduce production in synthetic rubber and purchase more of the natural rubber, but it is the fact that natural rubber is in competition with synthetic.
I was very interested to read a report recently made by a special correspondent of "The Times," who, after travelling some 500 miles in Malaya, from Singapore to the Siam border, and talking to the Sultans, district officers, local leaders and the people, said that the two main impressions with which that journey had left him were, firstly, the rapid return to comparatively normal living conditions, in spite of the present economic stress after more than three and half years of stagnation under the Japanese; secondly, the general relief at the return of the British, felt by all sections of the people in Malaya—Malays, Chinese and Indians —and their consequent friendliness to the individual Briton. The correspondent said that this sentiment is a priceless asset which must not be lightly dissipated. I do want to assure the Committee, that His Majesty's Government do not desire to dissipate that sentiment, for, indeed, British policy, in the words of one of the White Papers recently published, is to bring about a political adjustment which will offer broadly-based institutions in which the whole of the community can participate, and assist in the development of Malaya's capacity in the direction of responsible self-government. Something more than a return to pre-war conditions must be achieved. There should be no going back to the parochialism of the past, which prevented greater progress being made. It is not the intention of the Government that the interests of the Malay people themselves should be overridden. That is why we hope the discussions now taking place will bring about a settlement. If that is so, it will enable the Government and the people to go forward and consider the bringing about of a wholesale reform of Malayan economy in their important industries, while preserving an indigenous landed peasantry.
There is immense scope for improvement in agricultural methods and further development of the cooperative system. A wider education would be a medium by which a greater sense of unity and common purpose could be engendered in the young people, while technical education would be an effective way of bringing the Malays into commerce and industry and also enable them to play their part in the political development of their country. We want an agreement which will bring about the required political adjustments so as to extend the representation of the people and abolish any racial prejudice and bitterness fostered during the war. That is the aim of the Government, and, I am sure, of all hon. and right hon. Members of this Committee and of anyone interested in Malaya, wherever they are. For that reason, may I say again that the discussions now taking place must lead to a settlement which will bring greater happiness and prosperity to the people of Malaya than they had before the war.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. Gammans: Anybody, I think, who knows the real position in Malaya today will have heard the words of the right hon. Gentleman with a certain amount of disappointment, if not dismay. He has had to confess to us that the misunderstanding between the Government and the Malay people still exists. As I mentioned in this House a short time ago, months have now gone by, and as time passes a situation of this sort deteriorates. The danger which I foresee, unless the Government can get a settlement within a reasonable time, is that the more moderate elements which are today in control may be in control no longer. I would agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said that nothing we may say in this Committee today should do anything to, make the task of the negotiators more difficult, but I would point out to the Committee that, at the moment, the points of difference are not, perhaps, so much points of substance as of atmosphere.
I understand, from what he has just said, that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to go a very long way to meet the legitimate wishes of the Malays and prove to them what the Under-Secretary said in this House on 18th March—that the Malay States are still Protectorates

and not British Colonies is in fact true. The trouble is that the negotiators are faced with an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion which is the inevitable result of treating a proud Eastern people in the way in which the Malays have been treated. The Malays today are alarmed that their civilisation and way of life may be endangered, and they have been hurt. I think the trouble is that they are no longer prepared to accept promises or statements by the Government at their face value. The Malays are a people who are staunch in their friendships, but they have very long memories for slights and injuries. I think that they feel rather like a businessman who, for many years, has had a loved and trusted partner and who on coming home one day finds the partner with his rand in the till. It is no good for that partner to say, "I did not mean to do it, and I will put the money back." Something has been broken and only time can heal the breach.
The task of the right hon. Gentleman and the negotiators in Malaya is, first, to create the atmosphere in which our word will be accepted and our promises taken at their face value. At the same time, I would say to my Malay friends in Malaya that I hope they will not worry about the shadow if they succeed in. getting the substance, and that, once they have got these assurances and guarantees from the right hon. Gentleman, they will take them at their face value. Secondly, I would say to them that I hope they will not dwell too much on the injuries which they feel have been inflicted upon them and their racial pride, by this Government. I hope that they will remember the long succession of British Governments during the last 80 years whose word they have learned to trust and whose good will they have never doubted.
I would ask the right hon. Gentleman for one definite assurance, and I hope he will be able to give it. It is that, when this new treaty has been signed, it will be laid before this House of Commons in a way in which it can be debated. The Malays do not want any more Orders in Council. Considering that this crisis has very largely arisen from the way in which the negotiations have been carried on, I should have thought that the least the right hon. Gentleman could say to the Committee this afternoon was that the


new treaty will be laid before the House and that we shall be given an opportunity to debate it. After all, the House of Commons is the only safeguard which Colonial people have against arbitrary acts of government. If that safeguard is removed, the right hon. Gentleman cannot expect the atmosphere which he wants, and must have, if the new treaty is to be successfully accomplished.
The right hon. Gentleman has referred to certain questions of economic rehabilitation. I wonder, therefore, if I might ask him once more the questions which I put to him a few weeks ago during the Debate on Colonial affairs and which, I am sorry to say, were not then answered. The first is: Can he say anything about the reduction in the size of the military garrison and when it will move out of people's private houses, clubs, office buildings, and all the other buildings which it is at present occupying? The present situation can do no good either from the point of view of military training or from that of the civilian population. The conditions are intolerable.
The second question is: Can he yet give any report on the petition which has been sent to him by the Junior Civil Service Association? As the right hon. Gentleman knows, what they have asked for is back pay during the Japanese occupation. All they have been given is three months' pay, ex gratia. Has he managed to solve that very delicate and thorny question of the four European Government servants who were not interned, but who were, nevertheless, given full pay for the complete period of the occupation as if they had been interned? What is the right hon. Gentleman doing about that? I asked him about it in a Question some weeks ago, when he said that he would look into the matter but, so far as I know, nothing has been done.
The right hon. Gentleman ought to say something from the point of view of the junior civil servants and the cost-of-living bonus. The cost of living is rising, but is the bonus adequate to meet that rise, especially for the lower paid people? What, too, has happened about the pensions to the widows of Chinese and others who were in the Civil Defence Service and who were killed at the time of the siege of Singapore? My last information is that these unfortunate women have, to

this day, never been paid a penny, nor has there been any compensation paid to men who suffered injury. Can he say something about rewards and honours to men and women of all the Asiatic communities, who stood by our own civilian internees and prisoners of war at the risk and often at the loss of their lives? When I looked at the Malayan honours list, it seemed to me to be a very meagre reward for that wonderful loyalty to our own race, when our fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
What has happened about war damage generally? We heard a little this afternoon about war damage on mines and estates, but what about the war damage of ordinary individuals? I am always getting letters, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, because I pass them on to him, from individuals who have lost everything. They put in their claims, but they get neither acknowledgment nor money. Cannot a partial payment be made? Months go by, and nothing is done. To an individual, this is a catastrophic loss.
The right hon. Gentleman has said something about food. I wish he had said something about inflation, because the food position and inflation go together. He has told us that the rice ration is already below what it should be, but I was not clear whether it was going to get better, or whether it might even get worse. I should like a more categorical assurance than we have had this afternoon that the Government feel that the situation is, in fact, in hand, because Malaya, like this country, is largely dependent on imported foods, and today the rations which many people are getting are not enough to enable them to carry on. Can we have some assurance that the situation is likely to get better or, at any rate, will not get worse?
The right hon. Gentleman said something about rubber. I hope he is not labouring under the delusion that the people of Malaya are satisfied with the bargain he has made at 1s. 2d. a lb.. When they look round, they see that the people of Ceylon are getting 1s. 6d. a lb. The Government have decided to assume the responsibility for selling Malayan rubber and, therefore, they must accept the liability for the price at which it is sold. I do not know whether this Committee realises what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) said just now,


that 50 per cent. of Malayan rubber comes from Asiatic estates and smallholdings. When negotiations were going on with America and with His Majesty's Government, were the Asiatic producers represented in any way, or was this bargain made in London behind their backs, without their having any say in the matter? It is no good the right hon. Gentleman paying lip service to the ideal of self-government, if vital decisions of this sort, which affect the daily life of these people, are made behind their backs.
I do not wish to repeat what I said the other day about State buying and selling, but I think that all of us in this Committee, unless blinded by political prejudice, should very carefully examine whether the virtues attaching to State buying and selling, which some theorists suggest, really exist. Superficially, there is a great argument in favour of it. It guarantees a fixed price to the producer and user, but there is an overwhelming objection to it—that, in transactions between Governments, political considerations cannot possibly be avoided. I am quite sure that when we tried to sell the Americans rubber, matters like the American Loan, the situation in Palestine and the food position throughout the world must have come into those negotiations, if only indirectly. Therefore, I hope that the Government, when dealing with the question of the livelihood of the Malayan peasants and others, will not view this matter from the point of view of doctrinaire Socialism. They have no mandate whatever to try out Socialism on the Colonial peoples. They may or may not have a mandate to try it out on us, but certainly not a mandate to try it on the peasants of Malaya. What the Malays want is a proper price for their rubber.
In these circumstances, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us an answer to the question, which he was unable to answer just now, on how long this present agreement will last and what is to take its place when it expires. Does he anticipate that the rubber situation will be such, that a free market can soon be established and that synthetic rubber and natural rubber can come into the competition which must, sooner or later, inevitably be faced. The only thing I would say about the right hon. Gentleman's figure for the pro-

duction costs of synthetic rubber, namely 10d. a lb., is that, frankly, I do not believe it. I believe that is just a statement which has been given out by the Americans in order to justify this price of rubber to ourselves.
I suppose all hon. Members realise that this Debate must necessarily be of an interim nature. We hoped that the Colonial Secretary would have been able to report the successful termination of these negotiations. I hope that as soon as the House reassembles, we shall have a full-dress Debate, not only on political matters but on economic matters as well. For example, many long-term questions will have to be decided, which the right hon. Gentleman either did not refer to at all, or else merely touched on. Perhaps the greatest of all is the question: What is to be the Government's policy towards immigration? What are we going to do to make up the deficiencies in the labour force on our estates and in the mines? He has admitted that the labour force on the estates today is only one-third of the prewar figure. Whom are we going to encourage to emigrate to Malaya—Chinese, Javanese or Indians? What is the long term policy with regard to food supplies? It has only been touched on this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about large-scale experiments in food growing. I am sure every hon. Member would like to know a little more of what that statement means. What is the long-term policy for giving Asiatics a greater share in the administration of the Government? Lastly—and this, perhaps, is the most thorny question of all—what is to be the Government's education policy? If we are to try to build up a sense of Malayan unity, are we going to continue the system of separate schools for Chinese and separate schools for Indians? All these problems presuppose a solution of the political difficulty. Without that, Malaya cannot devote itself to the urgent and vital tasks of reconstruction, and there will be no hope of a contented and happy Malaya.

4.53 p.m.

Mr. Rees-Williams: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) considers that he carried out the advice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies not to say anything which would upset the negotiations now pending, but to my mind he made statements which can have


nothing but unfortunate repercussions. In the first place, he has likened my right hon. Friend to a defaulting partner, who robbed the till and who now wants to be taken back in a white sheet. The hon. Member also said, "You must remember our many years of good government and you must excuse this rotten Government for what they have done." The fact is that this plan was drawn up and started by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) when he was in office, and my right hon. Friend has carried on that plan. So that if there is a fault at all, it is a fault of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol as much as of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I think that, in the main, it is a good plan. I believe it has been put over in rather an unfortunate manner, and it was put over by a person who was a very poor choice.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: I suppose the hon. Gentleman is aware that immediately on his return from this mission, the Secretary of State for the Colonies selected him again for one of equal importance.

Mr. Rees-Williams: That may be, but in another part of the world. He may be an excellent person in some parts of the world, but we are now discussing his eligibility for Malaya. I am saying that he was not a great success in that part of the world. I only wish that in this respect one's tongue were free, and that one could go fully into all the circumstances which have arisen in Malaya. It is by no means as simple as the hon. Member for Hornsey would have us believe. Malay opinion itself is not at one in this matter. At the beginning of this month the Malay Nationalist Party walked out from the conference which was then being held with the United Malay Nationalist Organisation. The Malay Nationalist Party is a republican party, and it has as its aim the joining up of the Malays in Malaya with those in Indonesia into one large Malay republic. That is an entirely different state of affairs from the United Malay Nationalist Organisation's policy, which is a Conservative policy, to go back to the old system as far as possible. It is certainly very different from the policy of the Rulers. Nothing of this has come out in the speech of the hon. Member for

Hornsey. One would think from his speech that there was a united feeling among all the Malays in Malaya. That is not so.

Mr. Gammans: As the hon. Gentleman is quoting me, may I ask if he would not agree that whatever they may be disunited about, one thing which they are united about is that they detest this policy? There is no disunity about that.

Mr. Rees-Williams: I do not agree. I will read something of the proposals of the Malay Nationalist Party. They say their aim is:
To unite all classes of Malays, imbue into the hearts of the Malay people the national spirit, and to work for the establishment of a Malayan Republic as a part of the Republic of Indonesia.
Further on, they say:
The Malay Nationalist Party suggests:— The nine Malay States and the Settlements of Singapore, Penang and Malacca as men. tioned above, should be embodied under one central Government, 'The Malay Union'.
Surely, that is a direct opposite to what is desired by the United Malay Nationalist Organisation. This is the policy of the two right hon. Gentlemen who now sit facing each other If they have one set of supporters in this world, it is the Malay Nationalist Party who are supporting them for very different reasons from those for which we on these benches support them. They supported them because they feel that a strong central Government and a Malayan Union will, in time, turn into a republic of Indonesia for which they hope. I would point out, too, that there are other peoples to consider. We talk about the minorities, but, in fact, there are more Chinese in Malaya than there are Malays. The Indians are a very large minority, too. When one adds them all up, the Malays themselves are in a definite minority.

Sir John Barlow: Could the hon. Gentleman give us the figures?

Mr. Rees-Williams: Yes, I can. The estimated figures are for 1941, because the last census was taken in 1931, as the hon. baronet knows. These are the estimated figures prepared by the War Office, which was concerned with this matter for a time.. The total population for the whole of Malaya in 1941 was estimated at 5,511,313. The Chinese population was estimated at 2,379,211.


The Malay population was estimated at 2,278,588, and the Indian population was estimated at 744,276. There were others, including Eurasians and Europeans, and so on, and the total of those is just under 100,000. I suggest that the best course we can take at the moment is, as my right hon. Friend suggests, to leave it in the hands of the very experienced administrators who are out there, and to hope that they will be able to come to a satisfactory settlement with representatives of the Malays and of the other races. I feel sure they will be able to do so now. With that blessing, we can turn to other and, to my mind, equally important matters with regard to Malaya.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his economic policy in Malaya. Before the war, all the eggs were in two baskets: rubber and tin. When rubber and tin were at high prices the coolies had full rice bowls, the Europeans had a very satisfactory standard of living, and the Chinese had, in many cases, a very luxurious standard of living. When there was a slump, the big companies in Malaya, and the Government themselves, were absolutely ruthless with their employees. These employees were flung out, without any regard to their own personal requirements; it did not matter whether they were European, Chinese, Malay or anything else—out they went. I remember very well that the 1929 slump hit Malaya very hard in 1931. People were actually dying of starvation in the streets of a British Colony, namely, in the Strait Settlements. That is a most scandalous blot on our history, and that at a time during the 80 years about which the party opposite are now talking, when there was such a wonderful feeling of confidence between the people of Malaya and the people of this country. They had freedom then—they had freedom to starve, and they did starve; in many cases they committed suicide rather than starve. I can vouch for that myself.

Mr. Gammans: I do not want to contradict the hon. Gentleman to his face, but would not he accept from me the assurance that that is not so, that people did not starve in the streets, that people did not commit suicide? It so happens that at that time I was registrar of the cooperative societies in Malaya, and also chairman of the unemployment fund.

Will he accept my assurance that that is not so?

Mr. Rees-Williams: No.

Mr. Beverley Baxter: May I point out that the hon. Gentleman is referring to a period when a Socialist Government was in office, or immediately following?

Mr. Rees-Williams: I said the slump did not hit Malaya till 1931. That is the year we went out of office. I am talking now about the end of 1931. I do not accept the assurance of the hon. Member for Hornsey. I will tell the Committee why. I personally, came into contact with this sort of thing. On one occasion I defended two people who were pulled out of the sea, and charged with attempted suicide. It was admitted generally that they had attempted to commit suicide because they were starving. There were many cases of that kind. There was another case reported in the Press, which I read with my own eyes, where a man had actually died of starvation on the sidewalk in Penang. These facts cannot be denied. If the hon. Gentleman wishes it, I will look it up and give him the actual names of the persons concerned. I have the Press cuttings. He will see from those cuttings that the judge commented upon the fact that starvation had driven people to those lengths.

Mr. Gammans: Is the hon. Gentleman giving odd cases, which might happen in any country, and, in fact, happened in this country? Or is he trying to make the Committee believe that in 1931, or any other year, there was general starvation in Malaya? Of course, it is possible to take odd cases. What impression is he trying to convey to the Committee?

Mr. Rees-Williams: There is no possibility of even odd cases of starvation in this country now. There were many cases of starvation in Malaya, and many cases of suicide. I was challenged by the hon. Gentleman, and I say there were cases of that kind. I am now giving, from my own experience, actual cases with which I came into contact. If I came into contact with some, obviously there were many more. Not many people were fished out of the sea, because most of them remained there. These people about whom I am talking were


fished out of the sea because the police came along in a boat and fished them out. The ones who were not fished out remained in the sea, and were never charged. with attempted suicide.
It is admitted by my right hon. Friend that there was too much dependence on rubber and tin. There was that dependence on rubber and tin because it suited the big business firms of New York, Amsterdam and London that it should be so. They had very little regard for the people of the country. I am very pleased to see that my right hon. Friend has appointed an economic adviser to Malaya. As soon as that economic adviser's foot touched the shore of Malaya, he made a statement such as I am making today, namely, that in future in Malaya there will be a more balanced economy, and no longer will rubber and tin be the only products, to any large extent, which come out of that country. The fact that so much rubber and tin was produced had an unfortunate effect upon the food produced in the country. Out of the 6,000,000 acres available for plantation, of one kind or another, 3,480,989 acres were planted for rubber. Therefore, well over half the total amount of land available for plantation was planted for rubber. Only 793,340 acres were planted for rice. In other words, only 34 per cent. of the rice consumed was produced in the country. According to a statement of my right hon. Friend yesterday that figure has now dropped to 25 per cent. Thus, every year Malaya has to buy 75 per cent. of its staple food from elsewhere. I suggest seriously to my right hon. Friend that one of his primary tasks is to get the production of rice up to a more economic level. It is possible to do so, because there is still in the country quite a large available acreage which is not under cultivation, for rice, for rubber, or for the third largest crop, copra. There are still 1,000,000 acres available for cultivation. I think he should try to get production up to at least 50 per cent. of the requirements of the people.
Another matter which, to my mind, he is dealing with very ably is the question of the trade unions. It is all very well to say, as the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) said yesterday, that the Chinese have been running trade

unions for 3,000 years. The object of Chinese trade unions is very different from the object of our trade unions.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Much more practical.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Whether or not they were running for 3,000 years, the result of that 3,000 years has not meant that the ordinary coolies get very much of the results of their labours. I remember in Singapore, about 1932, when the Daylight Saving Bill was introduced, the Chinese coolies petitioned the Government, saying they could not possibly agree to one hour more of daylight being added to the day; they were already working from dawn to sunset, and if another hour was added to the day, it would be more than they could bear. That, in itself, shows that these Chinese trade unions, about which we have heard, were not able to do very much for the unfortunate Chinese coolies. We know as a fact that they were often victimised. Unfortunately, they were victimised more often by their own people than by the European companies. Quite often the standards of employment by the European companies were higher than they were among their own people. However that makes no difference. Indeed, it is an added reason why there should be trade unions, properly organised on Western lines.
I turn now to the cooperative societies. I believe the thrift societies have done very well. The hon. Gentleman the Member tor Hornsey is the great expert on this subject. He was concerned with it in Malaya for many years. I think he will agree that the trading side has never been developed to any large extent. It is quite possible that that is a field to which my right hon. Friend might direct his attention. The one matter in the speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey on which I agree with him is the treatment the civil defence workers have had from the Government. This admittedly is rather a scandal. Several of the people I knew in the old days have come to me and expressed great concern because these people have had no pension, no money whatsoever, from the Government in spite of the fact that they had been very seriously injured in the first bombing of Penang, which, as we know, took place a good many years ago, right at the start of the campaign in Malaya.

Mr. Stanley: Is the hon. Member referring to people who were subsequently interned, or to people who escaped, and were either in this country or Australia during the rest of the war?

Mr. Rees-Williams: The people I am referring to are Asiatics; they were neither interned nor did they escape. One particular case I must give, because I cannot make large general statements all the time to suit hon. Members opposite. It was the sad case of a sergeant who served in my company in the volunteers many years ago. He was in the fire brigade in Penang, and one of the bombs that fell blew off his leg when he was on duty. He has never had any compensation whatsoever, he has never even had a wooden leg, and ever since then he has been hobbling about on crutches. I had a very pathetic letter from his wife, who told me that there are many other cases of that kind. I took this matter up with the Governor of the Malayan Union and he promised to consider it sympathetically, but it may need, the attention of my right hon. Friend before anything is done.
In conclusion, may I say that I believe our aim in Malaya should be the development of the country for the people and by the people? We should aim at self-government at the earliest practicable time. This, in my opinion, will necessitate not only an economic revolution such as I have mentioned—a different type of and a more balanced economy—but it will also mean that the actual Civil Service itself will have to be placed on a much more modest basis. The present number of governors, resident commissioners and European civil servants is much too high for the country to bear when it has to pay its own way. There are one Governor-General, two Governors, and Lord Killearn. I do not know whether the last named is in any way chargeable, but at any rate he occupies a good deal of accommodation there, and he is, to that extent, a charge on local funds. There are many other officers and the number, I think, should be pruned, I do not know whether it would be possible, if the Governor of the Malayan Union becomes the High Commissioner, to join this office with that of the Governor of Singapore. It always was joined in the old days, and I do not see why it should not be joined again.
When it is remembered that in Malaya there is one European administrative officer for every 50,000, as compared with one for every million in India, it will be realised that we have been running rather on a Rolls Royce basis up to now. If the country is to have a more balanced economy, it must have a much smaller Civil Service and technical service, especially of Europeans. This will have an effect upon the Asiatic officers, because at the moment, the Asiatic officers' salaries are based not on the salaries paid in the country to other people in other walks of life, but upon the salaries paid to European officers, who are highly paid because they are taken away from their country of origin and sent to the far ends of the earth. That again is a great charge upon local funds, and it is one which cannot be met when the country is really run for the people of the country, and by them.

5.15 p.m.

Sir Jocelyn Lucas: I want to confine my remarks to the British civilian internees who were captured by the Japanese. In general they were not allowed to leave Malaya if they were between the ages of 18 and 50. Therefore, they were not volunteers, and if they were captured it was not their own fault. If they volunteered to join the local defence corps, which was a military formation, they got full pay during the period of their internment, even if they were actually employed as clerks in sedentary occupations. If, on the other hand, a man went into the civil defence, say the fire service or the wardens' service, he only received three months' pay ex gratia at first, and then, after a great deal of agitation on the part of hon. Members of this House, the Colonial Office agreed, where there were no other reasons, to an ex gratia payment of full pay, less 10 per cent. On the whole, considering that they did not expect to get anything after all this long time, I think the men are pretty well satisfied and do not mind that odd 10 per cent.
On the other hand, there are a great many temporary civil servants, some of whom gave up highly paid jobs at the request of the Government to join the temporary civil service there just prior to the war. They are only paid up to a limit of £1,500 for the whole period of their internment, and that in some cases means a very great loss. Some of these men are very dissatisfied and if the Minister could


look into the question again, I am sure it would be a great comfort to them. It is extraordinary that the women are being treated on an entirely different basis. If a woman joined the V.A.D. and wascaptured and interned, she received full pay for the whole period of the internment, and in addition was awarded the Overseas Medal. In fact, I think she got two medals. If, however, she was in the Civil Nursing Reserve and was called up or joined up before the war, she gets no pay at all, unless she was gainfully employed in the period before the war. Some of these special nurses had married a comparatively short time before, and they were, therefore, out of employment for some months. They are technically not qualified to receive their pay. It does seem very hard that, of women doing identical work captured at the identical time, some should get full pay and some no pay at all. In addition, those who are classified as civilians will get no medals at all, as they cannot count their period of internment for the three years' qualification for the Defence Medal.
A part-time mortuary attendant at Blackpool, or some place that never saw a bomb, will get the Defence Medal if he did the job for three years. A nurse, who had volunteered and was nursing under fire, who was captured and suffered all the hardships of internment in Japanese hands for a period of years, is not allowed to have that medal. I understand that the matter is under consideration again, but I should like to quote from a letter I received this morning. It said:
They will give me the medal, perhaps, eventually, but I shall only be in uniform for another three months and I should like to wear my ribbon while I have still got a chance.
The V.A.D.s have got their medals; cannot the Minister put down his foot, or lift his hand, or whatever he does on these occasions, and say that they can wear their ribbons now?
There is one other point I want to mention, and that is about some of the women civil servants. I am not talking only about white people. One came to me the other day and showed me her form of engagement. She was engaged for the duration of the war, and was not allowed to resign during the war; and although she was offered another job, with the American Red Cross, she could not take it. There are two interpretations of the term "duration of the war." One is, the

duration of the war with Germany; and the other is, the period of the continuation of the war with Japan. It is true that when they joined up, we were not at war with Japan; but they were captured by the Japanese, and held in internment, and some were tortured. Yet they are not allowed to count that period of internment for pay. Surely, the Colonial Office should take a rather broader view. If the Colonial Secretary would look into these matters, and see what he can do to help, I know that all those people would be very grateful.

5.21 p.m.

Sir John Barlow: In accordance with the custom of the House, I take the earliest opportunity of declaring that I have certain interests in Malaya, which have taken me there periodically during the years before the war. It seems to me that, since Malaya was released from Japanese occupation, the period of conversion has been a very sorry story. There was the MacMichael visit, that has been discussed at length in the House. Then there was the Order in Council proposing the Malayan Union, which was also discussed at considerable length in this Chamber I do not propose to go over that again. It is old ground that has been covered. It has been discussed almost ad nauseam. But there is a great lesson to be learned from it. Apparently, the Government wish to adopt a certain line of policy which, on a broad view, I think, we are all agreed is beneficial to the country. But they took two very wrong steps, which antagonised the country when it was in a very delicate state of mind after the Japanese had left. I should like to ask the Colonial Secretary a question before I leave this. I should like to ask him if at the time when he was considering the imposition of the Malayan Union and the Order in Council, he asked advice from the high officials in command in Malaya at the time, and especially of the Commander-in-Chief S.E.A.C.—and, if so, what the reply was—as to whether the imposition of the Malayan Union, in the terms in which it was issued, would be satisfactory to the country.
I pass on to the question of rehabilitation. The Secretary of State has already made reference to the help which the Government are giving to the tin mines in starting up their machinery again, which


is all-important from the point of view of the economy of Malaya. I should like to refer, very briefly, to the rubber plantations. As is well known, when the Japanese armies were advancing many plantation managers were told they had to destroy their buildings and machinery, and, in some cases, to flood the territory, in order to try to stop the Japanese from advancing faster. A great deal of destruction was done to the estates in the way of flooding and destruction of buildings. A war damage committee is about to be set up in Malaya, but, as far as I know, they have not begun to consider evidence yet. I should like to know when the right hon. Gentleman expects this mission really to get under way and to start work, and when he expects some damage payments to be made; and, also, in particular, why such damage payments should not be made when the Government are pressing for quit rent on the rubber estates at the present time. It is probably well known to the Secretary of State that most of the rubber lands out there are rented from the Government at what they call "quit rent," which is payable at so much per acre; and the local government are demanding that quit rent as from 1st January last. Now, many companies have great charges to meet in putting their buildings and machinery right. They are also called upon to pay this quit rent, in some cases from a period before they were in beneficial occupation of their estates again. In some case, I suggest, there is considerable hardship in that direction.
I should like to refer to the figures relative to the population which the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) gave, because I think they were rather misleading. He said that in the country of Malaya there were actually more Chinese than Malays. I could not quite understand his statement at the time, but now I think I understand it. Taking the Straits Settlements, which have a population of about three Chinese to one Malay, that is perfectly true; but it gives a wrong impression of the whole. There is in the country districts of Malaya a far higher Malay population than Chinese population. Most of the Chinese are in the large towns, and, especially, in Singapore itself. I believe there was a very serious error of judgment on the part of the Secretary of State, in the method of handling the admittedly difficult period of

transition in Malaya; but, in fairness to him, one must congratulate him on his seeing the futility and danger of the former policy he adopted. It seems—or, at least, one hopes—he has abandoned his earlier methods. Apparently, he has had a change of heart, and is approaching the matter with more clearness, justice and common sense. I urge him to pursue his negotiations in this spirit of common sense and justice. Let him recognise the rights and privileges of the Sultans, and, I feel sure, an amicable solution to the problem will be found, so that the country's prosperity and happiness, which existed before the invasion, may speedily be restored for the benefit of everyone in Malaya in the future.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: I do not intend to keep the Committee long, because some of us remember the last Colonial Debate, when many of us sat here for hours and yet many Members on both sides were unable to get in. I shall, therefore, try to confine my remarks to a few points in the next 10 minutes or so. I agree with much that was said by the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans), but I should like to point out, with regard to the statement that for the past 80 years Malaya had been able to take the word of the Government of Britain, that if, as Lord Hailey said, those Governments here had spoken less with their hands on their hearts, and more with their hands in their pockets, then, maybe, we should not be seeing so much difficulty that we have, at the present moment, in the Colonies. Then, maybe, the economic set-up in Malaya would not rest on the limited basis of two industries, on which the entire life of the people depend. I think the mere fact that we are having this discussion now, indicates that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State and this Committee are approaching this problem of Malaya in a suspended fashion, with a great deal of common sense, and not in any dictatorial fashion at all. If it had not been approached in a dictatorial fashion in the past, we should not have been having this discussion at this moment, with the likelihood of another after the Recess.
I was delighted to hear Members on both sides emphasising the need to get the military out of the way in South-


East Asia, especially in Malaya, so that they do not clutter up the place and so that civilian life can carry on. When I was in Malaya, I talked to rubber planters, and I found that they could not get lorries and cars. Some had to ride to their jobs on bicycles, and others had to walk. The military, on the other hand, had plenty of equipment, and I cannot for the life of me understand why some of this equipment could not have been handed over to the civil and economic administrations. I do not think there is any disagreement on this. We hope that we have heard the last of the rattle of the sabre and the stamp of the jackboot—at least I hope we have heard the last of these for a long time, and that the poor civilians in the world will be able to organise the arts and sciences of peace.
Analysing the type of people in Malaya, we find that they fall into three categories. First, there is the old timer, and we raise our hats to him for the work he has done in the past. Many of these people were interned, and after their release they were expected to carry on with their jobs. Among them are many senior Malay civil servants, and I think that the Government have expected too much of them in asking them to carry on straightaway with their work. They are incapable of administering Malaya in this new spirit, and of facing this problem of rehabilitation and reorientation of our ideas about the build-up. They have been accused of delay, and of drift and of deferring decisions. I believe that the Government will have to give local officials on the spot the right to make decisions and stop this game of "Passed to you, please." Unless local officials have the right to make a decision on the spot, we shall kill, stultify and destroy the energetic young civil servants who are going out, because they will be afraid to take any initiative. This Government must put new life and energy into the Civil Service, and must be ready to allow the civil servant who knows the language and the psychology of the people, to make a decision, because then we shall be able to have a more energetic Colonial administration.
Then we have the second type. We have the merchants and the traders, many of whom came back with the Supplies

Department of the B.M.A. They were lucky if they found a seat on the plane, and some of them were not allowed to get to work quick enough. These people are not so much concerned about the reorientation of our ideas on the build-up of Malaya, as they are with the rubber plantations and tin mines. It may be argued, if there is to be dialectic, that by doing this they are building up the life of the country. We placed some of these people in good positions, but I think that they are afraid of the new Socialist policy which the Labour Government are trying to hammer out in the Colonies. They are concerned to get their businesses going again as soon as possible, and they have no interest in rehabilitation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I believe that I can justify that statement. I believe that I am justified in saying that they are not interested in the broad plans for rehabilitation, but in the rubber plantations and the tin mines.
A third type comprises the ex-Service-man. He is the young fellow who went out and served in the Far East, and is now given a Colonial Office contract. These men are of good fibre. They may not know the language at the moment, but their enthusiasm proves, if they are given responsibility and the chance, they will make the right type of young official. I found that in their eagerness many of them showed a complete lack of colour consciousness, and for that reason they are worth while.
Maybe the Rulers were given to understand that failure to sign would be some kind of disloyalty to the King, but, personally, I do not believe that, I do not believe that it serves any useful purpose to discuss that point of view. I believe that greater opportunity should have been given for the discussion of details of the White Paper, but the common sense of the House is indicated by the procedure we are adopting at the present moment. In the letters in the Press, and from correspondence I receive from Malaya, a certain amount of bitterness is shown regarding the eligibility of members to the legislative council in Singapore. We find this difference. The Malay Union realise that both Malay and the English languages shall be used, but on the legislative council only the English language is to be used. Some correspondents have written to me that they consider this to be a neat political manoeuvre. There is no


reason whatever for maintaining this as a qualification to be a member of the legislative council. A second qualification is that the person to be elected shall not have served a term of imprisonment of more than six months. I can think of some Members of the honourable House of Commons who would not have been elected if this had been one of the qualifications. It all depends on definition. Is imprisonment for political or trade union activity to be a disqualification? The field will be limited by the fact that only spoken and written English is to be used.
How far off in the future can we assure the Malays that some system of a national assembly will be established on universal suffrage? How far have we abolished restrictions of language, educational standards, residential and property qualifications and limitations of sex? These may be controversial issues, but nevertheless Singapore is still regarded as the political centre of this area. Will Malaya ultimately be able, under the policy of the Labour Government, to enter U.N.O. as a unit? Can the States in the Peninsula establish their respective councils by universal suffrage, with ultimate responsibility to some legislative assembly? I see, according to the newspapers, that they are urging the Sultans to put up a fight. I fully realise that we can no longer regard the Orient as an appendage to the Occident. They are very near, but nevertheless Kipling was right when he said:
East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
The most important issue of all is that of education. What is the aim of our educational system to be? It was Ruskin, I believe, who said that gymnastics was a science which seemed to think that the human body had not a skeleton. Why do we want these people to be educated? What methods are we using? From figures which I received from the Colonial Research Bureau, I was delighted to find there was an increase in the number of children going into the schools in Malaya. But there is a certain qualification which we must bear in mind. A Malayan newspaper states that the plea for free education is being put forward, but while the labourer struggles for higher wages and clerks and teachers clamour for higher pay and increases in salary, the Government report that school fees will be

increased from 1.20 Malay dollars to three dollars a month.
An analysis which is made of a Government clerk's income in Malaya shows how much it costs him to send one child to school at the present time. The income of this clerk—and he is very, lucky—is 120 dollars a month. Transport to and from the school for his child costs 50 cents a day—10 dollars a month; pocket money and lunches six dollars; paper, pens and ink, 1.50 dollars; school fees, 3.20 dollars a month. A Malay parent with one child at school, in order to get a progressive education, is spending 20.70 dollars a month oat of a salary of 120 dollars.
So Malaya is asking for free education. If they are asking for free education, they must realise that intelligent taxation buys civilisation, and that implies that a taxation system will have to be evolved in Malaya to give them this free education. The Colonial Research Bureau states this week that the time to review and replan the educational system has now arrived. We cannot return to the old set-up. Of course, provision must be made for higher technical education and vocational training, and I believe that the training must be, not so much in educational gymnastics, as in training these people in the qualities of integrity and the qualities of government. The trade union movement that was set up in 1940 said that two-thirds of the officials had to be employed in industry. I believe that we are making a mistake when we try to set up trade unions in these countries, based on the British trade unions. We must approach this issue of trade unionism in the Colonies and in the backward areas from a completely different angle. At the present time, I am pleased to see that a constructive approach is gradually being made to this issue of trade unionism in Malaya.
I am quite convinced that the Malay people will realise that both sides of this House are taking a keener interest than ever before in this issue, and that no longer are we looking at Malaya as a "dollar arsenal" for the British people, but, I hope, as an integral part of the national Commonwealth, ultimately to take its place in the comity of nations.

5.43 p.m.

Squadron-Leader Donner: I rise to make one point only, because I said all that I wished to say on


the subject of constitutional reform in Malaya during the Debate on 8th March. The truth is that the situation has changed very fast and profoundly in Malaya since Sir Harold MacMichael visited that country. The Colonial Secretary, in his speech, said that discussions were now taking place which he hoped would soon reach a conclusion. Certainly, there is an opportunity to come to a settlement now with the sultans. There is an opportunity now to safeguard the Malay way of life, to safeguard the Malay race, and to restore their confidence and faith in the Crown. There is an opportunity now to make a settlement with the moderate, reasonable elements in Malaya. Unless that opportunity is taken it may be that His Majesty's Government will find that they will have to deal not with the moderate and reasonable elements but with extremists, with men inspired by Pan-Malayan ideas and by a fanaticism of a kind recently exhibited in Indonesia. The time element is all-important. The Colonial Secretary has had the courage to retrace some of the disastrous steps of last autumn and winter. He may rest assured that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain if he presses for a quick and successful conclusion now of the discussions which are taking place, even at the price, as it may seem to him, of superseding the MacMichael agreements.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Reid: My right hon. Friend asked us not to say anything that would upset the prospects of settlement in Malaya and I shall try to keep to that request. I must say that the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) said one thing at least which would not promote a settlement of the political constitutional question in Malaya. He referred to the action of the present Government as something like that of a partner who put his hand into the till. This constitutional question was dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the present Colonial Secretary, and I am certain that there is no one in Malaya or in this country who would think that they were capable of doing a dishonourable act in dealing with the constitutional problem. What has happened is that the present Government have made the mis-

take of trying to "hustle the East." They went too fast and tried to get this thing through too quickly. There were good reasons for that perhaps, but, whatever the reasons were, they should have consulted the people more.
At the time, I remember discussing this with people interested in Malaya and I advised what was carried out afterwards, namely, to do the minimum by Orders in Council then and settle the question of citizenship and other difficult questions later on, after further consultation with the people. That is being carried out now. I hope that it will succeed, and from what I hear from friends from Malaya it is going to succeed. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) about cutting down staff in Malaya. I hope that will not be adopted in Malaya. He referred to small staffs in India. I was, some years ago, sent over to South India to investigate the question of animal disease because India and Ceylon were closely connected in that respect. In the large district of Tinnevelly there was one veterinary sub-inspector, while in the city of Colombo alone there were two veterinary surgeons. There was a proper administration in one case and only a scrappy administration in the other. I am not blaming the Government of India, because they had not the money to pay the staff. I have known the case of a single civil servant ruling over two, three or four million people in India, almost equal to the whole population of Malaya. I hop that in a rich country lika Malaya, with an enormous economic potential, a proper staff will be acquired. They cannot have proper administration without the necessary staff. When one thinks of the dirt tracks that often pass for roads in India as compared with the tar macadam roads in Malaya, one will see that one must have up-to-date engineers in Malaya, whereas any person could upkeep the dirt tracks which form the roads in great parts of South India.
One thing which struck me in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was the question of the enormous importation of rice to Malaya. If Malaya is properly administered in the future the country should be self supporting. My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon stated that one million acres of land had been allocated for agricultural purposes and on


it anything could be grown, like coconuts, rice and so on. But that is only a fraction of the land in Malaya which is jungle, and if cleared and cultivated could support a population of 30 million quite easily, something like Java, which has a population of 40 million to 50 million. I do not think the Colonies can be administered in detail from this end, but sometimes help can be given by the Colonial Office to those abroad who are inclined, in some cases, to copy the past without alternatives of a different kind.
I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, that in future not a single inch of Crown land in Malaya should be sold outright. Even if one were not a Socialist but had a knowledge of land administration, he would agree that we should not part with Crown land but should let it out on lease with security of tenure. When Crown land is leased to people there should always be a condition attached that the land will be taken away from the tenant unless the tenant puts it to good use. This modern idea is put into force in many places.
There was one remark of the hon. Member for Hornsey with which I agree, that there can be no prosperity in Malaya until there is a proper political settlement. People who have lived and worked in countries where the constitutional difficulties have been long since settled, cannot realise how difficult it is for people in plural societies in various Colonies and other countries who are divided religiously, socially and so on to settle down to practical constructive work. We in this country settled our constitutional questions long ago. We have profound unity without uniformity, but in those countries which are without unity or conformity things are very different. The settlement of this political issue in Malaya is one of the first things that must be done, and the chief item to be settled is that of citizenship. I do not intend to settle it now, because I know how difficult it is, but I think it can be settled and I would appeal to those dealing with the problem and to the people of Malaya to solve this awful difficulty of the plural society. The Malayans are a tolerant, easy going, likeable people; the Chinese are industrious to the last degree; and the Indians who go to Malaya are industrious, hard working people. There is no reason why the peoples of Malaya should not set an

example by settling the difficulty in their country which is caused by having plural societies. If the people of Malaya can do that I am perfectly certain that the scheme put forward by my right hon. Friend in regard to the future of Malaya will prove thoroughly sound and will promote the prosperity of a country which has such enormous potentialities.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Pickthorn: I only propose to say one sentence, though there is very much more I should like to say. I hope I may be forgiven for holding the Committee from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley). I do hope the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies is now fully convinced, as I think he must be—because he has shown us the courtesy of sitting here during our discussion—of the extreme urgency of a full Debate on this matter. It has been partly his fault—I do not mean his moral fault—that he has not been in a position, even if for the best reasons in the world, to give us grist for our mill this afternoon. It is partly due to the fact that a Debate of this character is confined to little over two hours, which means a rather dissipated discussion as well as a highly incomplete one. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider it a duty to the House in general to represent to the Leader of the House and to others that we should have a full and proper preannounced Debate as soon as possible.

5.54 p.m.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies will forgive me if I turn, in the first place, to the speech which was made by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams). I do that because I wish to deal first with the only bit of my speech which will be in any way controversial. The hon. Member for South Croydon is not in his place. He has not been in the Committee since he made his own contribution, but I must call the attention of the Committee to the statement he made today, which was only a continuation of the statement he made in a previous Debate, and which I will read to the Committee. No one, I think, could accuse me of trying in any Colonial matter to evade a fair share of the responsibility for what I did when I was in office. I


do not want to nor do I need to, because I am proud of what I was able to do. This is the statement:
This plan was a Tory plan. It was evolved two years ago. I actually saw it two years ago, and I do not suppose I was the first to see it by any means. Sir Harold MacMichael was sent out before we came into office, and I must say I am extremely sorry for the Secretary of State for the Colonies, taking on a new office of this kind, suddenly in being plunged into this arena, and having to rectify some of the mistakes made by his predecessor. Everyone knows that these are the facts of the situation. No one can deny them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th July, 1946; Vol. 425; c. 318.]
I can tell the Committee someone who can deny it. I do not know if hon. Members opposite know of a publication called "Empire." It is the journal of the Fabian Society. I should have thought it would have been known to the hon. Member for South Croydon, who sets himself up as one of the Colonial experts on the Socialist side of the House. This is what the "Empire" said about the Malayan constitution in November of last year. It did not say that this was a Tory plan or how sorry it was for the Labour Government having to accept something which was brought into operation before they came into power. It said:
The Labour Government has been in power for three months. Already there are considerable achievements to show in the Colonial field. In this short term a plan with revolutionary implications has been announced for Malaya. … This is far from being a complete list of the new lines of activity opened up by Labour Ministers at the Colonial Office.
Do not let us have any more of this humbug.

Mr. George Hall: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me but I do not in any way make myself responsible for such views. When he tallks of humbug I do hope we will not have it from either side.

Mr. Stanley: If the right hon. Gentleman puts it that way, I will pursue this question.

Mr. Hall: I am not referring to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Stanley: I have seen no denial of this statement, and it really does appear that if a thing is going well it is a revolutionary achievement of the Labour Government, but when it falls into difficulties,

then it is a Tory plan. The hon. Member for South Croydon repeated today what he said before, and it is only right that I should point out, in fact, that what he describes as a Tory plan was approved by the Coalition Government. It was a plan which, before being approved, was submitted to a sub-committee of which the Prime Minister happened to be chairman. I take full responsibility for the plan and for the principles in it, which I believed then to be right, and which I believe now to be right. It is absurd to extend it in this way, and the allegation that Sir Harold MacMichael was sent out before we came into office is demonstrably ridiculous. If he had been sent out before the Socialist Government came into office he would never have signed any Treaty, because until a month after the General Election Malay happened to be in the hands of the Japanese—

Mr. Harold Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman alleging that my hon. Friend said that he was sent out?

Mr. Stanley: I am reading from HANSARD what the hon. Gentleman said in the last Debate, and which he has repeated in this. I hope we shall have no more of that.
With regard to the political situation, let me say at once that I will join in no charge, or give countenance to any charge, that, whatever misunderstandings there may have been, His Majesty's Government, in this affair, have been guilty of any breach of trust whatever. I do not think it is helpful to give to the Malayans any idea, even a mistaken idea, that the Government have been so guilty. That there have been misunderstandings and mistakes, yes. That those ought to be put right, yes. But that there is, on the part of His Majesty's Government, or any of their representatives, any deliberate intention to deceive the Malayans is something which I repudiate and which, I am sure, the Committee as a whole will repudiate. Naturally, I was disappointed—as the right hon. Gentleman is disappointed— that he was not able to announce today the successful conclusion of the negotiations which are now being undertaken. I was glad, however, to hear the optimistic account of the atmosphere and progress of those negotiations, and the right hon. Gentleman's belief that within a short time it might be possible to announce a satis-


factory conclusion. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman realises the great importance of urgency, and that in negotiations of this kind, if they once begin to delay, to stagger along, it may well mean that the psychological moment has been missed. All my information which, after all, is purely unofficial, gives me the impression that, whatever initial mistakes there may have been, the right hon. Gentleman is fully carrying out the pledge which was given by the Under-Secretary in the Debate in February that he would instruct the new Governor-General and the new Governor of the Union, when they arrived in Malaya, to approach the Malays with every sympathy, with every desire to reach a settlement, and with every willingness to make a concession short of sacrificing the basic principles upon which all of us are agreed.
My information is that those are exactly the lines on which the Governor-General and the Governor are approaching this question, as, from my personal knowledge of them, I should have expected they would. It is because I am sure that the Government will not allow small points to stand in the way of a settlement that I am optimistic about the chances. Although I, personally, have every sympathy with the Malays, and want to see all their legitimate grievances met, I do feel that the fundamentals of this scheme will be for the good of the whole of Malaya and, not less, for the Malayans. While I am only too glad to see the right hon. Gentleman prepared to make concessions, and to see His Majesty's Government prepared—it may be at some cost in theoretical pride—to make alterations in their scheme, I hope that will not encourage people anywhere to think that justice is merely weakness, or that desire to reach agreement is merely a wish to appease. We all desire to support the Malays in their legitimate claims, just as we desire to support other communities in Malaya in their legitimate rights, but we do not wish to see the Government pushed, by any of these communities, further than we believe it to be right. I sincerely hope that when the House meets again after the Recess the right hon. Gentleman will be able to announce a satisfactory conclusion to the negotiations, and that we shall be given an opportuity to debate whatever final scheme has been arranged.
I want to turn to some of the economic questions which were discussed by the right hon. Gentleman. On the whole, considering the difficulties, the progress of rehabilitation has been fairly satisfactory. I am sure the food difficulties must have been very great, and that all of us have been sorry to learn of the great straits to which the Malayan people were put during the war. The right hon. Gentleman's description of a nation which had to depend for its basic foodstuff on tapioca was indeed grim. He said, and I entirely agree with him, that we should not like it. We should not, but who knows, a continuance of the present Government may mean that we may have to lump it—and "lump it" is not an inappropriate term to use when dealing with tapioca. One always foresaw the difficulty about food requirements after reoccupation, and in the rice situation of the world, it must take some time before that can be fully restored. I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can explain to me something which, I confess, up to now, I have never fully understood. What is the position of Lord Killearn? What is the exact chain of authority as between the Governor, the Governor-General, Lord Killearn, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, the Minister of Food, and any other stray official dignitary, or Minister, who may from time to time drift, unhappily, into this sphere? I know that the right hon. Gentleman has not much time in which to answer, but I am sure that a few words from him would suffice to clarify that position.
Next could I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the position of imported commodities? One of our great shortages in the period of preparation was in incentive goods. Of all the stock piles, the stock pile of piece goods, cotton goods, was the lowest. I wonder whether it has been possible to increase the supply during the past year? That must have a very great effect on the inflationary tendencies in Malaya, to which attention has been called today. Then, I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman about compensation for war damage. In my time, the whole question of compensation for war damage had to be left in an unsatisfactory state. It had to be left until the war was over, to see what damage had been caused, and to see whether any


decision could be come to as to what payment should be made by His Majesty's Government towards the damage. The sort of general implication was that the scale should be not less favourable to Malaya than the similar scale would be in this country. I wonder whether it has been possible to formalise that any more, or to get any nearer to fixing the date when payment of such compensation will take place, because many firms and individuals must have suffered almost 100 per cent. loss during the occupation, and must be in great difficulties, apart from any individual schemes of assistance, in finding sufficient capital to rehabilitate their properties or their works.
I was interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman's short passage on rubber prices. Nothing gave me greater interest than to hear, for the first time—I have never heard it before—not only this price, but any price given for the costs of production of synthetic rubber. I confess that, during my term of office, those were figures which had eluded, or had perhaps been kept away from, my inquiring official, and we were not then in a position to say either with this great exactitude, or with any exactitude at all, what the costs of production were. Certainly, no guess that I have ever heard in an attempt to arrive at this figure gave it anything as low as 10d. a 1b. I was surprised, and, from the point of view of the future of Malaya, frightened, to hear this very definite statement about 10d. a lb. as the cost of production. When I heard the right hon. Gentleman dilating on this point, when I heard that synthetic rubber was 10d. a lb., and that for many purposes it was as good as natural rubber, and for some purposes better, and that here we were offering natural rubber at 1s. 2d., I began to wonder why the Americans bought any rubber and whether they were just giving us a present of 4d. a lb.
I wonder whether the competitive position was not painted just a little too blackly in that picture. None of us wants to see an exaggerated price got from the Americans now. It would not be good business for Malaya in the future. Nor do we want to see exaggerated prices paid in Malaya, because if one is going through an inflationary period, to pay excessive prices for the products of the country, when no goods are available, only ex-

tends the inflation. But we do want to make certain that a price is being paid sufficient not only to bring the rubber forward, but to enable the plantation rubber growers to deal with some of the damage that has been done to their plantations. It is true they have not suffered the same damage as the tin people, but the growth of weeds during six or seven years must have been very serious, and it must be a very costly matter to put that right. We want to be assured that the current price of rubber is enough to enable them to do that. We want no excessive profits, but we want a fair price. I beg the right hon. Gentleman not to be quite so gloomy about the competitive prospects for the future of natural rubber compared with synthetic rubber.
I am glad to hear that attempts have been made to diversify the economy of Malaya in the future, but do not let us forget, whatever may be said about capitalism in the tin and rubber industries, that it was the income which the Government derived largely from the tin and rubber industries in Malaya which led to social services, hospitalisation and the provision of schools on a scale superior to any other part of the Colonial Empire, where such sources of revenue were not enjoyed, and which, as well as providing for these social services, did provide very considerable economic benefits for Malaya as a whole. Whatever diversification we may attempt and may succeed in getting, rubber and tin will always remain the basis of Malayan economy and the test of Malayan prosperity or depression. I think that, in adopting a policy of very much increased production of rice, we have to be on our guard. The production of rice was low in Malaya before the war, as it was low in other parts of the Empire which were rice-eating, because it was a non-productive crop, and because it could be produced so cheaply in other parts more favoured by climatic or other circumstances. Although a greater production of rice may be essential today purely for the maintenance of Malaya during this crisis, I am not sure that we can count upon a large rice production being really profitable economically for Malaya in the future.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Is it not a fact that the low production of rice had nothing to do with the climate? Was it not due to the fact that it was more profitable to


grow rubber? That is an economic matter. There is no climate in the world more suitable for rice growing than the Malayan climate.

Mr. Stanley: The rubber was not largely grown by the Malays themselves. It was grown largely by people imported to do it. It was a profitable crop, and, therefore, from the point of view of the economy of Malaya, it was profitable to import people to grow rubber. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we should import people to grow rice in Malaya as a permanent part of the Malayan economy? I doubt whether that would prove a very satisfactory economic proposition.
I should like the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies to deal with two points. The first is a general one. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee would be very grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would explain, in a few words, what is this new social policy which he has introduced in Malaya, to which the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) referred. It would, I think, be of considerable interest to us to know something about it, and to know how it differs from the old social policy. Secondly, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us anything about the present and future prospects of higher education? In what condition was Raffles College found when the territory was re-occupied? Has it been possible to reassemble the staff, and when is it expected that it will be able to return to its prewar standard?
We have had a very short Debate, but I did not think it right that the House should disperse for perhaps two or three months without having a chance to show that it keeps a very keen eye on, and has real interest in, what is, perhaps, apart from Palestine, the most difficult of our present Colonial problems. I am sure it is the hope of hon. Members in all parts of the Committee that when we reassemble—when, as I hope, we may have another and longer Debate on this subject—it will be possible to have that Debate in the knowledge that agreement has been reached, that the constitutional difficulties are out of the way, and that Europeans, Malays, Chinese and Indians alike can concentrate on what to them, in their daily

lives, will be of even greater importance, that is, the restoration, first, and the improvement, secondly, of the old economic prosperity of Malaya.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. George Hall: We have had an interesting Debate and one which, on the whole, has been very helpful, and there has been no more helpful speech than that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley). I should like to clear up the point with which the right hon. Gentleman began his speech as to who was responsible for sending Sir Harold MacMichael to Malaya. Sir Harold MacMichael went to the East on two occasions; during the period that the right hon. Gentleman was in office he went to Ceylon to survey the field and he returned after obtaining some very useful information, but it was I who was entirely responsible for sending him to interview the Sultans with the intention of obtaining the agreement.

Mr. Rees-Williams: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the visit to Ceylon was not, in fact, intended to pave the way for the later journey to Malaya?

Mr. Hall: Sir Harold MacMichael was sent out to make certain inquiries, which, I think, he was able to do. I am very pleased that the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the constitutional issue. Like myself he wants a settlement of this very important political question and I can again assure him that I shall do my utmost to bring it about. He referred also to a number of other questions; first, he dealt with that of food, and asked me what was the position at the present time, and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) asked me the same question. I am afraid that for some little time the food position will be very tight, but we are hoping that after a short period of some months the situation will become very much easier than it is at present.
Then the right hon. Gentleman asked me what was the position of Lord Killearn? I am not responsible for Lord Killearn, who was sent out to the Far East by the Foreign Office to do what I consider was a very useful piece of work in coordinating various authorities and representatives of certain countries with a view to seeing whether the food situation could be eased. There is no question


at all that the Lord Killearn organisation has done a very useful work, but there is a clear mark of distinction between Lord Killearn's duties and those of the Governor-General or any of the governors in the East. For information beyond that point, I would strongly advise the right hon. Gentleman to make inquiries from the Foreign Office.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of the price of synthetic rubber and referred to the fact that during his stay at the Colonial Office it was difficult for him to obtain anything like a price upon which he could depend. Well, the same very efficient official who was unable to give him the information has been able to obtain it for me, although, of course, it is true that this is very largely the result of the lapse of time. We have now been able to obtain very full costings, which have been seen in the United States of America, and, since I take exactly the same view as the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the price we have been able to obtain, and that at which, I am advised, synthetic rubber can be produced at a substantial profit, I regret that I do, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, take rather a gloomy view of the position.

Mr. Gammans: If the Minister considers that 10d. a lb. is the price at which synthetic rubber can be produced at a profit, can he say why it is that the Americans, only comparatively recently charged us 1s. 8d.?

Mr. Hall: Of course, I cannot reply to a question of that kind; I am simply giving the information I have with regard to the cost of production. I really do not know why we paid 1s. 8d. a lb. for it; that is entirely a matter for the Ministry of Supply, but if the hon. Member wishes, I will certainly make inquiries and let him know. The other question put by the right hon. Gentleman asked what was the position of Raffles College. I am pleased to say that the college will reopen on 1st September and that, as far as I know, they will be able to do so with a reasonably good staff. That is the present position and I hope that soon the college will be able to take up its normal rôle. Questions have been raised concerning war damage, and the right hon. Gentleman asked me the position at present. To be quite frank, I am a little disappointed. I hope that the Commission will soon settle down

to work; the secretary is already out in Malaya and he is preparing the way for the Commission. Instructions have been given to the Commission that they should deal, as far as possible, with the claims of smaller people, first of all, and I hope that they will get on with the job quickly and bring it to a conclusion as speedily as possible.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that this was a short Debate, and indeed the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) made the same point. I am not altogether responsible for that, but I will certainly put the matter to the Leader of the House and call his attention to the fact that the point was made from both sides of the Committee. I should think that the most unhelpful speech made during the course of this Debate was that of the hon. Member for Hornsey. I really wish he would not be quite as extravagant in his language as he is. I cannot imagine why he should describe me, and indeed the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who has admitted that he was in some way responsible for the policy, as "thieves with their hands in the till." It really does not do the hon. Gentleman any good in Malaya. I heard a speech made by him the other day when he stated that the mantle of the late Sir Edward Campbell had fallen upon his shoulders. I wish he would adopt a little of the attitude always adopted by Sir Edward Campbell. I have here a report which appeared in the "Malay Mail" on 5th of this month with regard to a speech which the hon. Member made about this very same question not very long ago, and this is the comment that is made:
Captain Gammans' statement at the Royal Empire Society that Malay might become a second Palestine was deprecated by the 'Malay Mail', which disagreed with his views. If he had not visited this country and studied the question on the spot he could be pardoned for being an alarmist, but for him to suggest that the Malays were capable of indulging in an orgy of bloodshed was not only to do them a great disservice, but to suggest that the authorities here lacked the ability to find a peaceful solution of the problem.
There is another reference in the Press which I will not read, but let me refer to the attitude of the hon. Member to the policy he is condemning now, which he condemned in Malaya, and which he condemned in this country when he returned from Malaya.
He made a speech on 8th March, and in the course of it, said on three occasions he was in complete agreement with the policy of His Majesty's Government. Why he should describe the policy in the terms in which he has now described it I really cannot understand. If he is going to assume the mantle of spokesman for Malaya, I would that he had a very much higher regard for the feelings of the Malay people themselves.

Mr. Gammans: As the right hon. Gentleman has attacked me on this point I would say that I was not imputing any bad motives to him or to anyone else for this policy. I was saying that, from the Malay point of view, that is exactly how the policy looked.

Mr. Hall: I am afraid the. hon. Member was a little more crude than that. He definitely referred to "thief with his hand in the till."
The hon. Member raised several points with regard to very interesting matters. He asked whether when the new Treaty had been signed, it would be laid before the House, as that was the only safeguard? At this stage I cannot really make any definite promise with regard to that matter. I should be prepared, when the agreement has been arrived at, that it should be debated here. Indeed, when the Debate took place in March upon this matter, it was then suggested that it would be necessary to have certain supplementary argeements to the then agreement, saying that the question of Malay citizenship had to be taken into consideration. We are hopeful that the agreement will be arrived at and that that can be fully reported to this House.
The hon. Member asked questions with regard to the junior Civil Service Association. The matter has been raised on two or three occasions. I have reported that there is an inquiry dealing with this matter in Malaya. I am hoping to hear almost any day that the inquiry is complete and that something has been done for the people in whom the hon. Member and other hon. Members of the Committee, have been interested. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. Rees-Williams) for his interesting speech. He referred to civil defence and other workers. I am pleased to say that the local government have now announced that the Personal Injuries Scheme has

been authorised for all persons who suffered injury in Malaya as a result of the war.
The hon. Member for South Portsmouth (Sir J. Lucas), who has been very energetic—I am not complaining about the very great interest which he has taken in these people—referred to certain persons, some of whom have a real grievance. He raised two points. The first was about some professional men who went into the Civil Service just before the outbreak of war and were complaining about the compensation which they have received. From many points of view this compensation scheme can be regarded as very generous. It is true that there is a maximum of £1,500, and I am afraid I cannot promise reconsideration of the matter. I will certainly look into the other point about the Defence Medals. A number of other points have been raised, but, the time at my disposal having elapsed, I will consider each of them and will reply by letter to the hon. and right hon. Members who put them to me.

Resolved:
That a sum not exceeding £448,752 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies.

CLASS II

FOREIGN OFFICE

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum not exceeding £2,292,030 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for the Salaries and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Salary of a Minister of State."— [NOTE.—£1,000,000 has been voted on account.]

SOUTH TYROL

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Boothby: There is a Motion on the Order Paper standing in my name and signed by about 150 Members of all parties, relating to the question of the South Tyrol. On behalf of all those Members I would like to express our very sincere thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) for giving us the oppor-


tunity to hold this, as I think extremely important, Debate. But for his intervention it could not have taken place. It has been granted on a Supply day, upon which the official Opposition has the right to choose the subject. I do not propose to divide the Committee at the conclusion of this Debate, because this is not a party issue. All I propose to do is to state a case, and to ask the Committee to give it very serious consideration.
We have to go back a little, to begin with, into the history of this business. The Tyrolese are of German origin. They are a mountain people, and they have an affinity, and much in common, with the Bavarian mountain people, and the German Swiss. They have a culture and a tradition of their own. It is a good culture; and a good, liberal, tradition. The original Tyrolese Diet was one of the earliest democratic institutions on the Continent of Europe. From 1363 to 1918, nearly 600 years, the whole of the Tyrol was a part of the Austrian Empire. To be fair, it must be said that they were always allowed a great deal of autonomy by the Austrian Empire; and were left pretty free to conduct their own internal affairs. This position continued, as I have said, for nearly 600 years, until 1918.
In January, 1915, Italy began negotiations with Austria with a view to entering the war on the side of the Triple Alliance. Those negotiations came to nothing. The Italians were not offered enough by the Austrians, so very soon afterwards, a month or two afterwards, they entered into negotiations with us. The result of these negotiations was the secret Treaty of London, signed on 26th April, 1915. I do not think that this was a Treaty of which either Mr. Asquith or Sir Edward Grey, who negotiated it on our behalf, were ever very proud. The object of that Treaty was to get Italy into the war on our side. I am the first to admit that it was a very important objective. But I do not believe in secret treaties. And this is certainly not a treaty in our history of which we have any reason to be proud. However, Italy came into the war as a result of it; and the war was won.
We come now to the Treaty of St. Germain. The cession of the South Tyrol to Italy in that Treaty constituted the

first, and the gravest, violation of the principle of self-determination laid down by President Wilson at the Peace Conference. M. Clemenceau fought against it at all times. Mr. Lloyd George subsequently said that he bitterly regretted it; and so did President Wilson. Well they might; for more than anything else this cession of the Tyrol to Italy undermined the moral foundations of the Treaty of Versailles, and gave us that sense of guilt, that guilt "complex" about the Treaty, which did so much damage in the years that lay ahead; and which enabled Hitler, for one, to make so strong a case against us.
What next? For two or three years, I admit, all went fairly well. Then came Mussolini and his Fascists. The policy of the "Italianisation" of the Tyrol was introduced. I have no hesitation in saying to the Committee that it was a brutal policy, brutally carried out. All the old cultural associations of the Tyrol were dissolved. Italian instead of German was made the official language. All the German-speaking officials in the Tyrol were dismissed, and replaced by Italians. Even the names of the towns were changed. I frequently visited the Tyrol between the wars as I dare say many hon. Members did. One found the village of Sterzing, one of the loveliest in the Tyrol, changed to Vipiteno; and Bozen changed to Bolzano. Even the inscriptions on the tombstones were changed from German into Italian. This Italianisation policy also involved a substantial immigration of Italians into the Tyrol. They all crowded into the towns. Bozen alone had to accept 20,000 Italians. At the same time there were compulsory purchases of land; and hordes of Italian officials and civil servants came into this beautiful province. Nevertheless the Tyrolese held out. They refused to become Italians; and the Italians for their part refused to become mountain farmers. There has never been a genuine mixed population in the Tyrol, and there is not a genuine mixed population in the Tyrol today.
Worse was to come. The Berlin Pact, signed by Hitler and Mussolini in 1939, fixed the Northern frontier at the Brenner Pass. Under that Pact the people of the South Tyrol were given the alternative of voting for German citizenship, and leaving their homes and emigrating to the


Reich; or voting for Italian citizenship, with the probability of deportation to Abyssinia. Almost to a man they voted for German citizenship. But they did not go to Germany. They hung on, and stuck to their own soil. As Tolomei, the head Italianisator, said, they obstinately refused to believe in an Axis victory. The resistance movement during the war was undertaken in the Tyrol not by the Italians but by the Andreas Hofer Bund, which consisted entirely of Austrian citizens.
I ask, are we really to underwrite a filthy deal done by Hitler and Mussolini, which reeks of Nazism and Fascism, and characteristically ignores all human values? If we have to underwrite this filthy deal, why? Is there some secret agreement— another Treaty of London—of which we have not been informed and of which we know nothing? I hope that the Foreign Secretary, when he comes to reply, will enlighten us at least upon this point; because if we have not entered into some secret agreement, I cannot understand why he has agreed to this solution.
I come now to more recent happenings. Since May, 1945, a further 70,000 Italians have entered the Tyrol under a scheme of planned immigration. The provisions of the Hitler-Mussolini Pact relating to the emigration of the Tyrolese have not been annulled. The Tyrolese can still be expatriated from their homes as undesirable aliens. Lastly, Tolomei, the arch-apostle of the policy of merciless Italianisation, is reported to be back in the Tyrol. He was decorated by the Fascists for his services before and during the war; and, instead of being in the Tyrol, he ought to be in prison. What is the object of this? There can only be one object—to reduce the Tyrolese to the position and status of a minority in their own country. That is the objective. Is it to be wondered at that they fear that union with Italy, and submission to Italian rule, must mean the complete disappearance of Tyrolean life, traditions, culture and language, within the space of a few decades?
I have not had the advantage—I wish I had—of visiting the Tyrol myself during recent weeks. I must therefore quote to the Committee from two high authorities. The first is the special correspondent of "The Times" who recently visited the Tyrol, and who wrote:

In all these bartered valleys there is scarcely a man, apart from the Italians imported here, who does not long for a return to Austria. There is no faith left in Italian policy…. Nearly all the Italian officials serving in the South Tyrol are the same men as under Mussolini, and 95 per cent. of the officials are Italians. Although it is now permitted to teach and speak German, many features of Fascist government are in danger of reappearing.
My second quotation, which reached me only yesterday, is from the Catholic Bishop of Brixen:
Fear and bewilderment have seized the minds of these Austrian Alpine farmers who are unable to believe that for a third time they should be made the victims of a political barter which would perpetuate that hostile Italian rule under which they have suffered for a quarter of a century…. In case injustice should triumph, every South Tyrolese who dares to take a lead in the people's protest now knows that he will have to suffer for it. As the spiritual leader of an unhappy people, I feel therefore that the nature of my office compels me to appeal to all free nations of the world not to allow the flagrant violation of these high principles—the right of self-determination and freedom from fear, as established in the Atlantic Charter…. To leave our land, against the entire will of the South Tyrolese people, in the hands of the Italian administration which brought the atmosphere of the Southern Italian slums into our clean Austrian towns, would be an injustice of the first magnitude… . The suffering which the world has endured during the dark days of the war will have been of no avail unless those elementary rights have been secured in which all free men believe.
A word now about the frontiers. The Brenner frontier fixed by Hitler and Mussolini is a purely "prestige" conception, and is inextricably bound up with Fascism. It has no strategic importance today, for Italy or anywhere else. In the south, the Tyrolese are making no claim for the Trentino, which is predominantly Italian. As the hon. Member for the Queen's University of Belfast (Professor Savory) has pointed out, the natural and proper frontier for the Tyrol, from an ethnic, geographical and economic point of view, is the Salurn Gorge, about 25 miles south of Bozen.
Let me turn for a moment to the economic aspect, upon which great stress has been laid, and in which I know the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is greatly and rightly interested. Much has been made of the power stations established in the South Tyrol by Mussolini, largely for strategic reasons and for the purpose of rearmament. The Austrians have proposed to develop a


sort of Alpine "T.V.A.," internationally controlled, for the benefit of Central Europe as a whole. That seems to be a logical and correct development; and the right way of handling the economic problems of this region and of others. But the Austrians have gone further than that. They have undertaken to give Italy treaty rights to the whole of the output of the power plants in the South Tyrol which have been erected by the Italians during the period between the two wars. The whole of the output of electricity from these plants can be devoted to industrial purposes in the North of Italy. I do not think the Austrians could have gone further than that. For the rest, so far as the economic problem is concerned, the produce of the Tyrol—agriculture, wine, fruit, and timber—is valuable and necessary for Austria, whereas it competes directly with Italian produce of the same kind.
I believe that the future of European civilisation depends in the long run upon political federation; but it will take time, it must take time. Meanwhile, do not let us delude ourselves, and salve our consciences, with the illusion that political frontiers are of no consequence. They are of great consequence. They can become festering sores, as they have done in the past, which hold up every promising economic and political development, and ultimately lead to war. I have no feelings of hostility against Italy, still less against the Italian people. We are her oldest friend. She stabbed us in the back in our weakest moment and our darkest hour, and she would have cashed in on our destruction. But that is better forgotten now. We want to revive Anglo-Italian friendship, and the tradition of Garibaldi. We want to give Italy the chance to become one of the great democracies of Europe; but it cannot be done on the basis of flagrant injustice.
I deplore—and I say it quite frankly to the Committee—the cession of Tenda and Briga to France. I deplore the decision not to give Trieste to Italy outright. And, for my part, I would like to give Italy the Mandate, under the United Nations Organisation, over Tripoli. But you cannot justify one injustice, or two or three injustices, by perpetuating another injustice. That is not the answer to the problem of Italy. The leaders of the Italian democracy in the past, men like

Salvemini and Sforza, have themselves admitted that the Italian claim to the South Tyrol is not justified. They did it when they were exiled from their own country under the Mussolini régime.
What is it that the Tyrolese ask? A plebiscite to decide their own fate. Is there anything anti-democratic about that? What have they got? A rough announcement from the Foreign Ministers that they are to remain under Italian rule. They have not even been allowed to present their case. They have never been heard in their own defence. Meanwhile, 70,000,000 of them, forcibly emigrated from their homes by Hitler and Mussolini, are treated as "displaced enemy personnel," and not allowed to go back to their own homes.
So many wicked things are being done in Europe today, some of them in our name, that we have grown callous and indifferent alike to the claims of justice and the cause of humanity. I think that is true of all of us, up to a point. I remember the bitter protests, especially the protests of the Left, against the Treaty of Versailles. By comparison with many things that are being done today, the framers of that Treaty were paragons of virtue; for it brought a measure of security and stability and prosperity to Europe, while we are bringing little but misery and fear and hatred. On both sides of the Committee we ought to face up to that fact. We have made little progress towards agreement with our victorious Allies in the war, and that is a tragedy. Admittedly the Foreign Secretary has put up a great fight for the right in Paris and elsewhere; we gladly admit that.

Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Member says it-is right; there is a question about it.

Mr. Boothby: I was expecting some objections from the hon. Gentleman. I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, however, that even although the deals may have been very few, it is better to have no deals at all than dirty deals; and this deal over the Tyrol is, in my view— I say it quite frankly and crudely—a dirty deal, at the expense of a people who do not deserve it.
This is only part of the moral crisis in which we are all involved. The issue, of course, is whether the principles of


Western European civilisation, which are based on the values of the Christian religion and on democratic humanism—

Mr. Gallacher: Hear, hear.

Mr. Boothby: The hon. Gentleman may mock, but it is true so far as Western civilisation is concerned—whether those principles are to survive, or whether the powers of darkness, based on totalitarianism and pure materialism and force, which is the doctrine associated with the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), will prevail. If the latter happens, two world wars will have been fought in vain. Too many people today preach the doctrine that respect for human rights and human personality, which is the root of our civilisation, is mere weakness—

Mr. Gallacher: Start by giving the workers their rights.

Mr. Boothby: —and that there is no room in the modern world for kindness or toleration or mercy. I thought the hon. Member for West Fife would kick, and I am very glad that he is here. For centuries, this country at any rate has fought for justice and freedom, and for the liberation of oppressed peoples in Europe.

Mr. Gallacher: Tell that to the Indians and Malays.

Mr. Boothby: What are we now doing for them?

Mr. Gallacher: You cannot hold them down any longer.

Mr. Boothby: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would go to Russia, and see how they treat oppressed peoples there. All I say is that, if we are to retain our position and our influence in the world, we must continue to stand for these principles. We really have no reason to apologise for our decency just because the rest of the world is indecent—for the time being. The voice of Gladstone has not been forgotten in Europe, and particularly in Italy and Greece. There never was a moment in history when that voice was more desperately needed than it is today.
That is my case; and I think it is not an easy case to answer. I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary to stand firmly for justice and right and fair play, for which, whatever the hon. Member opposite may say, this country

is famous throughout the world. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot get this disastrous decision reversed in Paris, let him at least plead that the solution of this problem, as of so many others, shall be deferred for a period of years; that the South Tyrol, that unique and lovely country, should be placed under international control until passions are cooled. and until that reason which has long been lost in Europe has resumed her sway, as we must all hope it will do, over a distracted and war-torn Continent.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. John Paton: I am very glad to have this opportunity of following the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) in the very eloquent and moving appeal to this Committee on behalf of the people of the South Tyrol. I find myself tonight in a unique position. For the first time, I find it necessary to congratulate the Opposition, and to thank them sincerely for having on one of these rare Supply days, which they so much cherish, brought this subject before the Committee. I think they have taken that decision because they are seized of the importance of this question, just as I am. The importance of the issues that arise in this decision that has been taken with regard to the South Tyrol goes far beyond the immediate application and may have other applications, as the hon. Member for East Aberdeen has pointed out, of the widest possible kind. It is true, of course, that the South Tyrol is a small country with a small people away down in Southern Europe, a people and a country that probably large numbers of our own people know little about, just as they knew little about Czechoslovakia before the war.
I am one who believes that principles of justice are not applicable only to great aggregations of peoples, but are of universal application to all peoples, to the weak and the small, as well as to the great and the powerful. It is because I believe that, and believe it very strongly, that I feel I must offer my protest here tonight, as I have done on a previous occasion, against what I believe to be an act of gross injustice to this country and people of the South Tyrol.
Ever since the decision was announced, I have tried to find some logical, convincing, reason why a Foreign Secretary


of a Socialist Government could ever have brought himself to assent to a proposal of this kind, remembering the history of the Labour movement of Great Britain, remembering the history of the international Socialist movement throughout the world in relation to the Italian persecution in the South Tyrol over all the years between the wars. It is beyond me to understand how it is that my right hon. Friend—with whose foreign policy in the main, as he knows, I am in complete agreement—should have been brought to assent to a proposal of this kind. I have listened to the explanations which have been given when I, and other hon. Members, have questioned Ministers from time to time about this matter. I have always been struck by the uncertain, wavering, nature of the answers, and the lack of confidence in the attempted justifications which have been put forward. I have come to what I think is a perfectly natural deduction, that this decision, assented to by my right hon. Friend, was a decision that he himself would not readily have made. It is a decision which I believe in his heart he detests. It is a decision, I conclude, that must have been forced upon him by pressure from other sources. I hope that is the explanation, as it seems to me to be the only deduction to be drawn from all the facts.
It is, of course, impossible to isolate the South Tyrol from general discussion of the entire European situation. We cannot understand what is being done with regard to the South Tyrol unless we try to bring that into relation with the general middle-European situation, and its problems. The South Tyrol is an important part of Austria—has been historically, and is now. Surely, it is a valid British interest, a valid European interest, that Austria—the new Austria now beginning to emerge from a welter of difficulties as a result of the war, should be capable of real independence, capable of freely developing within her own territory and able to play her part as an independent and free state in European affairs. It is a British interest to see to it that Austria is given, as far as we can possibly secure it, a reasonable chance of achieving that freedom and independence which I claim to be a European interest. But what are we doing here? Here is this little weak European country, with a great world metropolis to maintain as its capital, a country deficient in

natural resources, requiring all the possible assistance we can give it in order to give it the opportunity finally to emerge into real independence. I do not say that by giving the South Tyrol to Austria we shall make that final emergence into real independence absolutely certain, but I say that with the South Tyrol she will have a much better chance of achieving independence than she could ever have without it. Looked at from that point of view, this decision, to which our Government have assented, becomes all the more mysterious, and all the more inexplicable.
I want to put one or two points on the economic set-up. I questioned the Foreign Secretary some time ago with regard to the reasons for this decision. I was told, as I have already said, in uncertain tones, that the reasons were economic. As the hon. Member for East Aberdeen has shown, the whole South Tyrol in its economy is related with Austria and the North. It has no logical links with Italy and the South. The only conceivable economic proposition that comes into the question is the development of hydro-electric power, largely as a result of Italian attempts to Italianise the Tyrol. The solution of that problem has already been given. The Austrian Government were prepared to give Italy the fullest guarantee that she will be secure in her legitimate claim to the hydroelectric power she needs. That guarantee has been given, and it can be backed by a guarantee of the United Nations organisation. There is, therefore, no case on economic grounds why this decision should have been made. If there is no case on economic grounds, there is no other conceivable argument that will hold water for one moment as to why this quite monstrous decision should have been taken.
Last Monday I told the Minister of State that I had been receiving allegations from the South Tyrol to the effect that the Italian authorities have now, after the withdrawal of the Allied Military Government, reverted to the policies of the Hitler-Mussolini Agreement of 1939. Some evidence of that was given by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen. I want to confirm what he said. I happened during the last week or so to receive a document from an Englishman resident in the South Tyrol for some time, who has been observing the scene for himself. It is a document of great importance,


because it shows clearly that while, of course, we cannot accept his allegations as proven, there is at least a strong prima facie case for the examination and establishment of the facts, for which I pleaded last Monday. He says:
It is a disturbing feature that, fundamentally, so little appears to have altered here since the days of Fascism. In accordance with the decree published by the prefect of Bolzano, all those dismissed under German occupation must be reinstated, which means in practice that all the personnel employed in the Fascist administration are coming back into their old jobs.
He goes on:
Whilst the Allied Military Government was here, some attempt was made to maintain an even balance between Italian and South Tyrolese employees in public offices. Since the Allied Military Government have left however the Italians are continuing their old policy of "Italianising" of the Tyrol by dismissing South Tyrolese employees and giving their jobs to Italians.
Then he goes on to list by name a series of towns in the South Tyrol, in which German-speaking Tyrolese midwives and doctors have been dismissed from public offices by the Italian administration and replaced by Italian midwives and doctors, who know not a word of German, to work among the German population. I was told on Monday that there was no evidence that this sort of abuse was going on. I was told that the Italian authorities had given guarantees, they had made promises, everything would be all right, there was to be no recurrence of the old shames, the old persecutions and the old brutality. It is true that guarantees have been given; it is true that decrees are issued, formally correct, nice flowing decrees in beautiful Italian, promising all kinds of things to the population. But we have to go below the decrees, and find out the realities of administrative practice, and what this correspondent says is that in spite of the decrees the practice differs not at all from the practice of 1939.
He instances one specific case, of which I hope that the Minister of State will take note. He says:
on 4th April this year a long and imposing-looking decree was published to control immigration from the South,
an immigration only into Bolzano and Merano. The Italian authorities, after listening to the protests of the Tyrolese population, issued a decree, a long imposing decree for the control of the immigra-

tion, but in the reality it was possible for the Italians still to come up from the South to settle for a month in some other town in the South Tyrol apart from Bolzano or Merano and then, having become established as residents in the Tyrol, to move at their freedom into the two forbidden towns. He goes on to point the moral. He writes:
This is an interesting example of the way in which the Italian authorities provide paper guarantees which have no practical effect at all. That is why the South Tyrolese have no faith whatsoever in any scheme for autonomy which would leave them under Italian rule.
He accompanies his letter with a photograph which is very revealing. It is a photograph of a religious procession which took place in the town of Brixen in the month of June this year, a photograph which shows with the greatest clarity priests walking in their vestments, carrying the holy relics of their faith, followed, as is customary in such processions, by women and children attired suitably for the occasion, chanting as they go in procession through the streets of Brixen on the holy feast of St. Cassian, the patron saint of the town, but on either side of the procession march Italian carabinieri fully armed, a symbol of the democracy practised by the Italians in the South Tyrol in 1946.
The other day my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, speaking to the Anglo-American Society, said:
I believe Great Britain has at this moment a greater moral consciousness of its duty towards others than probably it has ever had at any time in its history.
I believe that to be true. I think we have a potentiality and capacity in this country for giving the world, on international realities, a tremendous, dynamic moral lead. But we shall not retain that moral ascendancy long, if we repeat what we are doing in the South Tyrol. Claims of moral ascendancy cannot be founded on acts of gross injustice and the perpetuation of old wrongs. I beg my right hon. Friend to have this matter reconsidered. I know the pessimists and the defeatists say that it cannot be done. "The Times" this morning, in its leading article, says in effect "We know about the injustice, we know about the wrong, but after this Italian agreement has been come to, after the herculean labours of the Foreign Secretary, for heaven's sake do not let us disturb it in any way." A lasting agreement cannot


be founded on such an injustice. If the attempt is made to make that agreement last, it will crumble in the same way as iniquities crumbled after 1918.
The only way in which we can get lasting peace in Europe, the only way in which we can get a lasting foundation on which we can rehabilitate security in Europe, is to begin with a steadfast adherence to justice and right, and never deviate from it. No considerations of expediency, no matter how tempting they may be in the short run. are ever justified in the long run if they are bought at the expense of basic principle. What I ask my right hon. Friend to do now is to get back to the first principles of the movement in which he has played such an honourable part. I want him to take his stand securely on those foundations upon which our international Socialist movement was built, and if, in his foreign policy, he keeps a tight hold of those principles, then he will never go very far wrong, and he will be sure of the wholehearted support of all us who sit on these benches.

7.18 p.m.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I would like to join my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) in assuring the Foreign Secretary that no one appreciates more than we do the many problems with which he has had to deal. But we feel that in the struggles to recreate the Continent at the end of the war, there are certain basic principles which must be followed. I have been lucky in having visited Austria recently, and at the same time I also visited the South Tyrol. The first thing that really impressed me is that this issue is not a local one. It is not one which affects only Austria, but is something in which all central European peoples are definitely interested, because to their mind this is the first occasion in which the Atlantic Charter has really come up for implementation. For all these peoples there is only one question, that is, whether this country and those other victorious Powers mean to stand by what they said in the Atlantic Charter, or whether, when the time comes for putting promises into practice, we shall merely deviate into whatsoever may be considered expedient for the moment.
On the immediate issue, I do not think that there can be any clash between us. We know how necessary it is for Austria to be a viable unit. We all know the strain which Austria is making on our resources at the moment. We all know that if Austria is not viable, is not independent economically, we can hope for no proper solution of the Danubian problem. In the viability of Austria rests the only practical solution to the Danubian problem. I do not think that any of us will quarrel about the right of Austria to claim the South Tyrol on ethnical grounds. I do not wish to worry the Committee with too many figures but I wish to quote a few. In 1910 there were 240,000 German speaking inhabitants of that area and only 10,000 Italian speaking inhabitants. By 1939, as a result of peace treaties and Italian immigration, the figures were 250,000 German speaking and 80,000 Italian speaking. By 1943, as a result of the Hitler-Mussolini agreement by which so many people were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia and elsewhere, the figures were 190,000 to 110,000. At no time and under no statistics available either from Italian, Austrian or any other source, has it ever been claimed that in the South Tyrol there were more Italian than German speaking people. In fact, I do not think anybody has seriously claimed that since 1363, which marks the beginning of the South Tyrol, has it been anything but a German speaking province, a province belonging to those other nations which formed, as it were, a bastion between the real German and Italian people.
The second question that is raised is on economic grounds. It is claimed that the South Tyrol must remain with Italy because it affects them and if they lose it their economic position will be seriously invalidated. There again, I do not think that any such claim can be maintained by a study of figures. Of course, agriculture is the main industry of that region. I think I am right in saying that 44 per cent. of the total population is employed in that one industry. If one may take the three principal things which they produce, of their fruit over 78 per cent. goes North over the Brenner Pass, of their wine 94 per cent. goes in the same direction, and also of their other produce somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60 to


70 per cent. In the history of the South Tyrol there never has been any appreciable trade between that district and Italy. All their products have gone North. It is not necessary to look far for the reason. Austria, and if one may go further, the Danubian provinces and countries, want desperately badly those things such as fruit and wine which the South Tyrol produces.
It is true to say that if the South Tyrol was aligned with Austria and with the Danubian trade, the present deficit of 18 million Austrian schillings would be turned into a net credit balance of 13 million schillings. I suggest that the mere inclusion of that province in the Danubian economy would result in making that part of Europe self-sufficient and able to play its proper part in a reconstruction of Austrian trade, whereas at the moment it is not only a liability to the Danubian area but also to those Powers who are trying to put it on its feet. That seems to be a simple and clear issue.
Much has been said on the question of hydro-electric power. I would like to add one or two words. No one realises more than the Austrian authorities what this problem means. I think right hon. Gentlemen on the Front bench opposite, the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues, grossly exaggerate this problem. In the first place, the whole of this hydro-electric installation, except for a very few small units, is the result of the 20 years of Italian occupation. These power stations were put there deliberately with the sole reason of trying to make the South Tyrol an Italian unit. There is no other reason. They have been put there just as the aluminium factories were put round Bosen, merely for political purposes. There is no economic purpose whatever to be served by their location in that district. I think the Austrian Government have realised that it is no good presenting such a claim as that; they have to provide a solution as well if they are to play their proper part in the settlement of this European question. They have made what I consider to be a very genuine and honest offer. They have said that any Austrian electrical undertakings that were there before the time when the South Tyrol was handed over to Italy, shall revert to Austrian control. The same shall apply to Italian undertakings. Where there is any question of doubt, either as to ownership or as to the output of a factory, then

they wish to pursue a policy, if the Foreign Secretary will excuse my German, similar to Vorarlberger Illwerke Aktien-gesellschaft, which is established on international lines, controlled by a board of directors, and governed by a charter which gives no nationalistic control of that undertaking but which provides electricity for various purposes. They are perfectly prepared to do the same kind of thing.
When we consider this problem of hydro-electricity we should realise the quantities that are involved. The North of Italy produces 71.9 per cent. of the hydro-electric power in Italy. Of that 71.9 per cent., only 7.4 per cent. comes from the South Tyrol. That is a negligible quantity. Those figures are taken not from any Austrian source, but from the Annuario Statistico Italiano of 1941, which should be a reliable authority for this purpose. I must say that those figures will be increased from the 5 per cent., which I quoted, to 8 per cent. under the plan for which no figures are available and which was undertaken by Hitler between 1939 and 1943. Even so, it is a negligible quantity. I would go further and ask this Committee to consider the percentage of hydro-electric power which is used by the various undertakings. It will be found that of this 5 per cent. of the 71 per cent., 12 per cent. is used by the railways, 40 per cent. by the South Tyrolean industries and only 32 per cent. is exported to Italy. Therefore, the actual effect that such a transfer could have upon the Italian power situation is only 32 per cent. of 5 per cent. of 71.9 per cent. If anybody can work out that sum—I have not done it myself— they would find it is such a negligible quantity that it cannot be seriously advanced by the Foreign Secretary as a reason for perpetuating this injustice.
There is one further question which I would ask the Foreign Secretary. Surely, in these considerations such a thing as hydro-electric power, particularly when safeguards have been freely offered, cannot be considered to be a vital condition. If one thinks geographically of the East Tyrol cut off from Innsbruck and the Tyrol proper, if one thinks of the economic advantages which would accrue to Austria —a small country but still the centre of any possible Danubian organisation—then I feel that we are making a gross blunder if not in ethics, or moral principles, at least from a purely practical point of


view. That point of view is to re-erect in Europe at the end of this war something which will last. I think the Foreign Secretary, with much better wisdom than mine, will have in his mind the dissatisfaction and discontent which have been built up in the past not only in the Balkans but in the Danube. We can settle that by having a strong Austria. We can also settle it if we show the peoples in the area that when we said we stood by the Atlantic Charter we meant it.
This is the first time on which the principles there laid down—that small nations should be entitled to choose under whom they will be governed and would be given freedom and liberty—has been brought to a test, and, on this first occasion, it is shown that the Government, at the moment, prefer mere expediency to any of those considerations to which, in every part of this House, hon. Members have paid real and genuine tribute. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the problem, and I am certain that, if he does, in the future, he will not only find that he has solved a local problem, but, in acknowledging the justice of the claim and the sincerity of the real desire of the people concerned to return to Austrian rule, he will have done something that will leave, not only a mark for the future of our efforts to solve this problem, but, in giving these small people the real knowledge that this country stands by its word and means what it says in the Atlantic Charter that every nation, big and small, shall, out of this war, achieve true freedom, create a true standard leading to a sincere peace.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Wilson Harris: I feel that this Debate is being conducted in face of some little difficulty. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) has covered the subject so comprehensively that, having followed it with some closeness ever since the Peace Conference of 1919, I feel that there is very little material to add to what the hon. Member has said. In these circumstances, it seems to me to be useful that hon. Members who hold strong convictions on this subject should give expression to them with what brevity and emphasis they may, particularly as they will not have the opportunity of recording their views in the form of a vote. There is the further difficulty that,

if the Government's statement of their position is not to be made until the end of the Debate, we do not really know where to address our arguments, because we have never yet received any kind of explanation of the remarkable attitude which the Foreign Secretary, whose general policy I have always supported with the greatest earnestness and conviction, has apparently adopted, in assenting to this remarkable cession, or rather this surrender of what I would call a basic principle in international affairs.
I quite agree with my hon. Friend that this is not primarily a political issue, not primarily a strategic issue, not primarily an economic issue. It is, first and foremost, a moral issue. There is no greater blot on the Treaties signed in Paris in 1919 than this question of the cession of the Southern Tyrol to Italy. It would be disastrous if today, when we have the opportunity to reverse that iniquitous decision, we refused to seize the opportunity. I do not want to go into history too much. We are concerned with 1946, not with 1919or1915, but there is one material fact which I would like to impress upon the Foreign Secretary. We have been reminded of the huckstering that went on, perhaps inevitably, when Italy first approached Austria and tried to get what she could. Having failed to get all that she desired, he turned to the Allies and got considerably more from them. My hon. Friend might have added that, when Italy approached Austria, she did not even ask then as much as she subsequently asked from the Allies, because her proposals left Bolzen, now Italianised as Bolzano, in Austrian hands. What is material is that, in January of 1918, when no one knew of this secret bargain made with Italy three years earlier, two historic statements of principle were made—one by the President of the United States, and the other, by a curious but undesigned coincidence, in the same week, by the then Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Ninth and Tenth points of President Wilson's Fourteen Points—which have not lost their validity today; far from it—provided for
the reajustment of the frontiers of Italy along clearly recognised lines of nationality,'
and the Tenth point, referring to Austria, proposed the
freest opportunity of autonomous development of the people of Austria Hungary.


All we ask today is the recognition of the principle of nationality in regard to the Southern Tyrol and of the principle of autonomy in regard to territories which are truly and properly Austria. I do not want to moralise; moralising is not popular in this House, I think rightly, but we need to remember to what we are committed. There is no one in this Committee who would be willing to repudiate the Atlantic Charter. The whole of our foreign policy since that document was issued has been based upon it. The signatories to the Charter declared that they did not desire to see any territorial change which did not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the countries concerned. A debating point might no doubt be made to the effect that what is intended here is, in fact, a territorial change. That is, of course, true, but it is merely a reversal of a territorial change that was made contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants of that territory in 1919.
We have to decide in this matter what kind of a world we are living in, and what kind of principle is it desired to follow in our foreign policy. This question seems to me to be a moral challenge to the whole of our policy in international affairs, because it is a matter upon which principle and expediency find themselves diametrically opposed. I do not know what defence is to be put forward for the retention by Italy of the Southern Tyrol. On the former occasion Italy was given the Southern Tyrol cynically and undisguisedly in order that she might have a strategic frontier on the Brenner. I trust that we have advanced a little since those days, but whether we have or not, no strategic question arises, because, in these days of air-power, a mountain frontier is of very different strategic importance from what it was in 1919.
We may be told that this defence is based on economic grounds; the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) has dealt effectively with that. I would say that we have to decide today whether frontiers exist for demarcation or for separation. If they exist for separation, then we have made no advance in the last 30 years. It is imperative that frontiers should allow the free flow of economic life and should not be allowed to impede the free passage of transport, and free prosecution of bene-

ficial trade with one another. It will hardly be argued that the perpetuation of an injustice, in itself, creates justice. It does nothing of the kind. It simply emphasises and intensifies the injustice, and it would be a greater injustice to leave the Southern Tyrol in Italian hands today than it was in 1919, when it was done under the sterner and irresistible compulsion of war.
My respect for the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State is such that it would give me genuine distress to see either of them standing at that Box and attempting to defend the indefensible. I appeal to the Foreign Secretary, with all the force with which I am capable, to do what he can to get this decision reversed or at least to get it reconsidered. It may be—it is the only explanation that fits the facts—that he has been compelled to assent to this injustice as part of one of those compromises to which men are driven when they meet their colleagues in international discussions. If that is so, I hope he will tell the Committee frankly what he can about it so that we may form our own opinions, that we may realise his difficulties and that we may certainly not judge it with the severity which some of us may be compelled to do unless we receive a much clearer explanation of the reasons for the action he has taken. If this decision cannot be reversed—after all, it has not been embodied in any Treaty—we hope that it will be postponed until those principles which are enshrined in U.N.O. and to which all of us have given our adhesion, have had time to take a hold on mankind and grow strong enough to throw up a barrier against this injustice.

7.41 p.m.

Mrs. Leah Manning: This is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. We can look back over 30 years to the infamous Treaties of London and St. Germain, and now we have to face the Peace Treaty of today. There is not the slightest doubt that some of the things that happened then, due, perhaps, as has been remarked tonight, to the stress of war, but which, nevertheless, were confirmed by the Treaty of Paris, are causing the greatest difficulty to the right hon. undoubtedly, present the same difficulties undoubtedly, present the same difficulties for him in the Peace Treaty.
I think that we must all feel, as has already been hinted by more than one hon. Member, that there is something in what the right hon. Gentleman has done with regard to the Southern Tyrol which he has been driven to do, some form of compromise he has been obliged to accept, because I cannot imagine that he has agreed to this matter on the principles of right and justice. I remember that when I spoke in the Foreign Affairs Debate in November, the right hon. Gentleman reprimanded me because I referred to the importance of ethnic considerations. I referred to the importance of ethnic considerations in regard to Trieste, which is a matter very much bound up with this question, when we look back over the years to the Treaties of London and St. Germain. But today every single ethnic consideration has been overridden in this question of the Southern Tyrol. When he was settling the question of Trieste and Venezia Giulia, the Foreign Secretary said that we must stick to ethnic considerations. But, when we come to the Southern Tyrol, we find that ethnic considerations have been violently trodden down.
As the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) has pointed out to the Committee tonight, the Southern Tyrol has been definitely and unhesitatingly German for 600 years. During the whole period of the Austrian Empire, it never changed hands like other parts of the Austrian Empire. It was always unswervingly loyal to the House of Hapsburg; it followed it in its misfortunes and its fortunes, in its rise and its fall. The Austrian people, who philosophically viewed the Treaty of Paris which resulted in the cession of 47 million Austrians to other parts of Europe, have never ceased to mourn the loss of the half million Austrians who live in the Southern Tyrol. They believed that if ever a Labour party came to power in this country—as they did believe during the war and if we ever had a Labour Minister, particularly if he happened to be the present Foreign Secretary who has known the Social Democrats of Vienna and the Christian Socialists of the Provinces, and who has counted so many of them his friends, there might be a possibility of justice being done. But what are we doing today? By this decision, if it be persisted in, we are

actually underwriting the violence and tyranny of the Fascist regimes which made life for those who lived in the Austrian Tyrol so unbearable.
In spite of years of trying to Italianise the Austrian Tyrol, it has remained an unalterably alien pocket which it has been found impossible to absorb into Italian thought, culture or economy. The Italians found it impossible to make these South Tyroleans anything but unalterably Austrian in their culture and outlook. As probably my right hon. Friend knows, out of something like 109 local authorities, 100 of them had an Austrian majority, and some 56 of them had over a 90 per cent. Austrian majority. If a plebiscite were held today, the result would clearly show to whom the South Tyroleans think they ought to belong. I have not had the advantage which the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Paton) and the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) have had of visiting Austria recently. I thought that perhaps there was something in what my right hon. Friend seemed to be saying about always considering the general economic situation of an area when deciding its frontiers. But the case has been completely demolished on any economic ground by the hon. Member for Norwich and the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch. The ethnic considerations are such that nothing which my right hon. Friend could say would make us feel otherwise than that these have been ignored.
What is the position; what is the answer to his riddle? Why this contradiction in the method of treating Trieste and Venezia Giulia on ethnic grounds and treating the Southern Tyrol on completely unethnic grounds? That is what we are waiting to hear my right hon. Friend tell us tonight, and that is why this Debate is being held so that he may be apprised, not only of the views of the Committee, but of the very deep conviction and of the very strong justice which urges us to ask him to remember those men and women in Austria who fought Fascist aggression for so long and who formed the basis of the resistance movement there. We ask him tonight whether, if he cannot make any definite promise of a change, he will, as has been suggested by other hon. Members, put this matter off and give passions an oppor-


tunity to cool. Let us see whether the Italians will not take a different line over this. Nobody is more anxious than I am to see the Italians take their proper place in a happy and united Europe. I do not wish to do anything to upset the trend towards democracy which we see growing in Italy today, but I do not believe that this sort of thing is going to help, or that we can bribe them into democracy. We can only train them into democracy.
What is being done by the Four Power Conference in Paris, not only in regard to the Southern Tyrol, but in other respects as well? The deliberations there do not seem to me to have been based on those justices for which we as a country stand, nor on those justices which the Atlantic Charter promised to small peoples, but, rather, on a cynicism and on some underlying compromises which have yet to be explained and which will not raise us to, and keep us in, that prestige which we as a nation had hoped to attain.

7.49 P.m.

Professor Savory: In view of the very eloquent speeches which we have heard tonight from the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris), the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyrc), the specially very able speech we have just listened to by the hon. Lady the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning), and also the wonderful speech by the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Paton), I need only detain the Committee for a very short time with a few considerations which have not hitherto been brought forward.
I take it that the present situation, according to the official communiqué, is that the conference of Foreign Ministers examined in Paris on 24th June the problem of Austro-Italian frontiers. In the course of the discussion, we are told, Mr. Molotov, the Soviet Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that after studying the report of the Italian experts on hydraulic power, he could not consider the Austrian demands as some slight frontier rectifications. After a long silence, the other three Ministers for Foreign Affairs approved the views of Mr. Molotov. Mr. Byrnes proposed that the Committee should study the guarantee which could be given to Austria to enable her to use the railway line lead-

ing to East Tyrol, and Mr. Byrnes proposed that this clause should be inserted in the Treaty of Peace. That is the official communiqué.
But it is not merely a question of the Pustertal, the valley which carries the railway to East Tyrol. It is a question of these three historic valleys—the Upper Etch, which the Italians call the Adige, the Eisack, which the Italians call the Isacco, and the Rienz. There is no claim put forward, as the hon. Member for East Aberdeen so strongly insisted, for the Trentino, which is admitted to be Italian speaking. The point is that we want to restore the old historic frontier of Salurn, the linguistic boundary on the River Etch near the pass which is called the Salurner Klause—that is to say, the mountain pass of Salurn. The borderline which runs across the Brenner is not an ethnographic, and it is barely a strategic, frontier. The linguistic border coincides with the real strategic boundary—it is a magnificent boundary—which runs across the Ortler Mountain which is over 11,000 feet up, to the Marmolata over 10,000 feet. It is not only a borderline, but it is much more suitable for defence than the longer Brenner frontier, which goes from the Reschen-Scheideck up to the Dreiherrenspitze, which is south of the Springs of the River Salzach.
Twenty-five years ago the Austrian delegation fought with tremendous persistency at St. Germain for the sacred right of Austria to keep the South Tyrol. The whole of the Tyrolese and the Ladinian communities—Ladinian is not a dialect of Italian; it is akin to the language spoken in the Engadine in Switzerland—sent an appeal to President Wilson in a last desperate attempt to avoid Italian domination' But the biographer of President Wilson said:
The President had, unfortunately, promised the Brenner Pass boundary to Orlando, a solution which he subsequently regarded as a great mistake and which he deeply regretted.
Mr. Lloyd George, as he then was, who also took part in this transaction, has stated his considered opinion in his most interesting book called "The Truth about the Peace Treaties," and these are his very words:
The hacking off of essentially Tyrolese villages and valleys from the rest of the Tyrol


was incompatible with the principles of self-determination implicitly embodied in the original war aims of Allied statesmanship.
Since 1918 this country of South Tyrol has been occupied and held down by alien armed forces—forces of the Italian military and police—which constitute an intolerable affront to this free and noble people. The people of South Tyrol view with alarm the possibility that this situation of 1919 may be repeated and that their unfortunate land may again be politically bartered for Italian prestige. It is on strategic grounds that this Brenner Pass was asked for by the Italians. What has been the result? They were given the Brenner. Protected by it, Italy attacked Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania and after the coup de Jarnac, struck against France, opened the defences of the North for the Nazi barbarians to close the Mediterranean and finish off the British Empire itself on African soil.
The infamous agreement to which allusion has already been made tonight, come to by Mussolini and Hitler on 23rd June, 1939, was the agreement by which Hitler betrayed the South Tyrolese and the people of Germanic race and language in order to forge and lubricate the Axis. When I pointed that out in a Question on Monday to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State, he seemed to imply that this treaty was not any longer being enforced. But I have spoken to people who have been refused permission to return. There are 70,000 of them, and I want to know what guarantee is going to be given in order to allow these people who have been forcibly driven out to be restored to their native soil. When I said that tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon them the right hon. .Gentleman took exception to this phrase, but it is perfectly true. Let him remember that they were threatened that unless they left for Germany they would be deported either to Southern Italy or to Abyssinia. Even so, only those who were living in the towns—the flotsam and jetsam of the population— finally left. The farmers and peasants who had held their land for hundreds of years, remained rooted to the soil. We have been told that the Italians have given all sorts of pledges as to the kind of treatment they are going to vouchsafe now to these people, but I have here a

letter from a British officer who has been in charge of a district in that country. In order to be perfectly fair, I sent this letter to the Foreign Office, and they have very kindly returned it to me. This British officer said:
The Italian Government has done everything it could do to remove or stamp out the old Tyrolese traditions and to italianise the people. Such things as forbidding the use of the German tongue, artificial importation of Italian settlers, mushroom factories and so on, have all been used in turn. Since its occupation"—
that is, its reoccupation—
it has been garrisoned chiefly by members of the co-belligerent Italian Fulgore Division and an almost negligible handful of American and British specialists. The Fulgore troops either on their own or on "inspiration" do everything that it is possible for them to do in order to terrorise the Tyrolese population. I myself have read through a wad of reports of their activities half an inch thick. The variety and enormity of these crimes is fantastic. The worst, signed and witnessed by five Tyrolese, told how Fulgore soldiers of the Bembo parachute division in the area of Dobbiaco entered a farm, having burst in the door, killed the invalid owner in his bed by shooting him through the stomach with a tommy gun, and left with all the money they could lay their hands on. Another of these reports told of how the members of this Division spent the evening in a bar, left without payment or, rather, the payment which they paid was a few grenades thrown into the inner yard over their shoulders. Cases of obtaining money at the pistol point or other small arms are numerous and organised burglaries of such items as tyres and bicycles are legion. One statement, again properly testified, reported that the colonel of one Fulgore battalion, on being reproached by the Burgomeister with the conduct of his troops, admitted that he had no further control over either his junior officers or his men.
These are the statements made by a British officer. He says:
All this cumulates in repeated demands of the people that they should be garrisoned by British and American troops, which would undoubtedly relieve the immediate situation. However, such conduct can only be an indication of what may be expected should all Allied supervision be removed, and a very great thorn in the place would be left there to fester.
That is what a British officer has written with regard to what is going on in that country today. I am afraid that although very eloquent promises are being made at the present time, when it comes to the fulfilment of those promises the same thing will take place as took place in 1919. At that time we were given every possible promise that these practices would be stopped, and that every kind of toleration would be shown to these people.


In a Question which I put down, I asked whether we should not insist on the inclusion of some clause in black and white, for the protection of the minority, so that these things would not occur again. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State, knowing his humane views, knowing his sincere love of humanity, to take steps to put a stop to these abuses, which have become far too prevalent, and which I fear may be increased as soon as all British and American control has been withdrawn.

8.2 p.m.

Mr. Paget: I merely wish to address one very short argument. The case for supporting the existing agreement is that it concerns one of the very few matters upon which we have been able to come to an agreement with the Russians. It is to that that I wish to direct my argument. On questions arising West of the Elbe it is a perfectly easy thing to come to agreement with the Russians. If it be a choice between right or wrong and wrong is chosen, if it be a choice between liberty of ancient homes or racial oppression and racial oppression is chosen, if it be a choice between economic sanity or economic insanity and economic insanity is chosen, then we can always come to agreement with the Russians.

Mr. Gallacher: Oh no.

Mr. Paget: And for this very simple reason: The Russian policy West of the Elbe is chaos. The Russians are resolved to make their system East of the Elbe work, and they are equally resolved, in so far as they are able, to prevent our democratic system West of the Elbe from working. Is it not time we put a term to this? Is it not time that we left the Russians to run their system in the East and denied to the Russians the further right to make life miserable for everybody who happens to live West of the Elbe? In seeking agreement with the Russians at the present time we are bartering our democratic heritage for a mess, and it is not even a mess of pottage.

8.5 p.m.

Major Mott-Radclyffe: I think it is fitting that we in this Committee should try to scrutinise impartially what can fairly be described as the only decision come to at the Paris Conference. However, because up till now all the

speeches made, with great eloquence and great sincerity, have been devoted to one side of the argument, and one side only, I think it is right that, in order to redress the balance a little, and at least to try to understand some of the arguments on the other side which led the right hon. Gentleman to the decision to which he has agreed, I should attempt to put some of those arguments. During the last 100 years the revision of frontiers has been the subject of more discussion, has resulted in more economic distress, more political antagonisms and more persecution than almost any other single factor. I believe that in this particular case, namely, of the Southern Tyrol, we should endeavour to discuss the question on its merits, and on its merits alone. I am not for one moment suggesting that any hon. Member who has spoken in this Debate—particularly the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), whose eloquence I always envy—has attempted to argue his case on any other basis than on its merits. But if there is one basis upon which to argue the question of the revision of frontiers which, I am sure, would be a wrong basis, it is that of sentiment. We should approach these problems rather by as fair an assessment as we can get of the economic, the strategic and the ethnic grounds.
On the strategic question, a number of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have argued that in conditions of modern warfare the Brenner is not a strategic frontier. That is a matter of opinion. Throughout the ages, and down to the 19th century, German and Austrian armies consistently invaded Italy through the Brenner Pass. Although conditions of warfare change, although we have to adjust ourselves to entirely new strategic conceptions, and although the Brenner frontier may not now have its former strategic importance, I do know—and I am sure any hon. Member on either side of the Committee who has served in mountainous country in this last war will share my feelings—the extraordinarily unpleasant sensation of fighting in a country where the enemy occupies the high ground while one's own forces occupy the low ground. No one can seriously argue that the Brenner has no strategic value for Italy. I do not think the Italian military authorities can fairly be blamed for arguing that to Italy it is of vital strategic importance.
I turn to the question of economics, and to the fact that the establishment of a hydro-electric plant, followed by the development of the metal, the engineering and the chemical industries, has transformed the life of the province of Bolzano. Hon. Members have argued what proportion of Italy's electricity supply comes from the hydro-electric plant in that province. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) put it at seven per cent. I myself would have put it rather higher, and I would have put it at a much higher figure as far as the electricity supply for railways is concerned. But even if the figure is 10 per cent. or 7 per cent., it is a fairly substantial proportion of hydro-electric power for a whole country to come from one area, and I invite any Hon. Member who thinks differently about it to examine for a moment what our reaction would be supposing, in quite different circumstances, we were asked to hand over to some other country 10 per cent. of our output of coal in the Midlands, even under guarantees. We should certainly not be thought unreasonable if we took rather a strong line about that, but it is what we are asking the Italians to do if this particular decision is reversed. I submit that on both strategic and economic grounds the Italians have a very strong case indeed.
Now we come to the ethnic grounds. There is no doubt that in the period between the rise of Mussolini and the Hitler-Mussolini agreement of 1939 the Austrian speaking population was grossly victimised. Nobody will attempt to deny that. Large numbers of Italian industrial workers were brought in, the German language was suppressed, there was discrimination against German speaking children in the schools, and all the usual set-up of the Fascist regime. It was in 1939, as my hon. Friend beside me has already said, that Hitler, in an attempt to come to an agreement with Mussolini, made a proposal that all German speaking inhabitants in these two provinces should be allowed to opt either to go back to Germany or to stay in Italy and assume Italian nationality. Some 166,000 opted in 1939 to go back to Germany, and by the middle of 1943, 77,000 had already transferred themselves to Germany. I would not for a moment ques-

tion the statement, which other hon. Members have made, that considerable pressure was put on the inhabitants of those districts to opt to go back to Germany.

Professor Savory: There were terrible threats.

Major Mott-Radclyffe: In 1943 Bolzano Province consisted of an Italian speaking population of 115,000 and a German speaking population of 159,000, and of those 159,000 63,000 had already opted to stay in Italy and assume Italian nationality, even under Fascism. Today, according to the figures in my possession, the German speaking population is 161,000 and the Italian speaking population 110,000, roughly. From the figure of 161,000, if you want to argue on ethnic grounds, you must subtract the figure of 63,000 for those who, in 1939, preferred to stay in Italy under Fascism and assume Italian nationality.
It is also a sad but undisputed fact that during the period between the Italian armistice and the total collapse of Germany a good many of the inhabitants of this particular area made no secret whatever of their sympathy for Hitler. I am sorry to say that, but it is a fact. It is also a fact that a large number of Austrians were recruited into the Austrian Army, particularly in the S.S. police regiments, of which one regiment in particular was operating until the very last moment against the Italian partisans in the Belluno area. Again, it is a fact, which no one can dispute, that in these particular S.S. police units were Austrian troops who took part in that most unpleasant massacre of Italian civilians in the Ardentine caves in Rome in the spring of 1944.

Professor Savory: Those were not Tyrolese.

Major Mott-Radclyffe: I do not want to get into an argument with my hon. Friend, but it is a fact that some of them were Tyrolese. I can only say that the salvage, if that is the right word, of those innocent Italian corpses, which I myself saw being dragged out from the rocks which had been blown in on top of them, is one of the most unpleasant memories I have of this war. To sum up, in my view the Italians have a good case on economic and strategic grounds. On


ethnic grounds they have not quite as good a case as the Austrians, but it is not nearly as weak a case as a great many hon. Members have made out.
We now come to the question of whether or not there will be persecution in this dispute area, and that is what matters. A number of decrees have been issued by the Italian Government guaranteeing free use of the German language in schools, in places of worship, public meetings and the Press, laying down that religion shall be taught in the mother language, and that the decision as to whether children are taught in Italian or German shall be left to the parents, an adequate number of school masters being provided to teach in both languages. These decrees may or may not be put into effect, but if hon. Members who argue for the Austrians say that if the whole of the Italian hydroelectric supply system is handed over to Austria it is only a matter of a guarantee, which of course can be enforced by the United Nations, that the source of electricity should be available to Italy, it can be equally argued on the other side that these decrees, which are at least designed to create impartial, non-discriminatory teaching in both languages in the disputed area, can also be made good by guarantees.
In conclusion, I would remind the Committee that Italy has been told that she must work her passage. She is being deprived, quite rightly in my view, because of the grave injustice done to us earlier in the war, of her Colonies; she is with equal justice losing territory to Greece and to France; she is also losing territory to Yugoslavia, with some of which I agree, though I would not agree with any suggestion that Trieste is not predominantly an Italian town. She is losing portions of her fleet, with which I am in complete agreement, but when she is being asked, as she is being asked by some hon. Members this evening, to hand back to Austria a territory which was occupied and fought over very fiercely by Austrian troops right up to the end of the war, it is an entirely different matter. After all, Italy, after the Armistice, did at least something to earn her status as a co-belligerent Power. We used her fleet, her partisans were quite effective, she had three or four divisions in the line with us, and they fought far better against the Germans on our side than they had fought against us with the Nazis in Greece or in

the desert. And it was the North of Italy from which the Axis troops were finally pushed back in which the partisans did very well, indeed. I do submit that to ask Italy now to give back that area to Austria is like saying to the Italians, "We did not mean it when we said you could work your passage home. We did not mean it at all when we said that we wanted, you to have a stable Government and respect for the victorious Allied Powers. You are really receiving the same treatment as you would have received had you not collaborated with us at all." I should not like the Foreign Secretary to have to go to the Italian Government and say that. For that reason, I would support him in the decision he has taken.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Benn Levy: I want to make only two points, and I can make them very briefly. First, I should like to make clear to the Italians—I believe I am speaking here even for those who have criticised the settlement—that that criticism is in no way actuated by any anti-Italian prejudice. The net result of a Debate of this kind, when the preponderant weight of opinion has been in that direction, is dangerously liable to be so interpreted in Italy, and I do think it is a point well worth emphasising. I thought it was a pity that the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) saw fit to remind the Committee, as he did, that—to use his own words—in our darkest hour Italy stabbed us in the back. He reminded us of that, apparently, for the express purpose of advising us it was as well to forget it. I am sorry he did not follow up with a reminder that Italy also fought, and fought very gallantly, on our side; that she suffered no fewer than 150,000 casualties; and that anybody who had any contact with her during the war knows she really did pull her weight. It is much more profitable to remember the time when she was on our side, than the time when she was not.
The charge of Fascism has also been hurled about the Committee. It is true that Italy was the first country to go Fascist, but it is true also that, persistently, there was a large anti-Fascist movement. There were men prepared to go into exile rather than submit to Fascism—100,000 of them in France alone. There were political prisoners in the gaols, to the tune of 35,000 to 40,000


throughout the régime at a time when the right hon. Gentleman the present Leader of the Opposition was paying florid tributes to Signor Mussolini in Rome in terms of fawning adulation.

Mr. Gallacher: And the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. IBoothby) was his principal supporter.

Mr. Levy: It is well to remember that alongside Fascist Italy there was always an anti-Fascist Italy. Apropos of this question of Fascism, it is true, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Windsor (Major Mott-Radclyffe), I think pointed out, that the Tyrolese, the inhabitants of the South Tyrol, are strongly Fascist. That part of the country is the stronghold of Nazism.
But the point that I want to make is. that I do not think these are really the relevant considerations. I am trying to sweep them out of the way because they have obtruded detrimentally into this Debate. I think, as most Members seem to think, that the Italian claim is a very vulnerable claim. But we should not be surprised that she makes it. It is quite natural she should want to retain territory which—I thought it was an open secret—she did not really want originally in 1915, but which was, as it were, forced upon her by the Allies who wanted the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But be that as it may, she has been there for no less than 31 years. She has developed certain industrial interests, no matter what the percentage may be. I thought that it was 13 per cent. of the electric power plants there that feed Italy. Her nationals have settled there, and have sent down roots there. It is perfectly reasonable and understandable that she should make this claim.
But—and this is the second point I want to make—I do not think it is reasonable to try to isolate this question of the Tyrol from the rest of (he Italian peace settlement. One cannot do that. I am convinced myself, for example, that the Italians would be perfectly satisfied to allow a plebiscite in the South Tyrol, and to abide by it, provided there were also another in Venezia Giulia One cannot settle one claim completely irrespective of the rest. Where I think we are at fault is that we have conceded the

least tenable claim, and refused the more tenable. That situation should be put right, if it is not too late for it to be put right. It is no good saying to the Italians, "We know we have been unjust to you in Venezia Giulia. We know that we have put 200,000 Italians under Yugoslav domination there, and put only 15,000 Yugoslavs under Italian domination. We admit that injustice, but you really should not mind, because we are being equally unjust to the Austrians in the Tyrol."One cannot expect that to be a satisfactory argument. I know, of course, that to a Foreign Office considerations of justice are not paramount. They are obsessed with that academic folly, that pet vanity of clever men who are not quite clever enough, which they call "realism." I have little doubt in my mind that for this present orgy of "realism" all over Europe, it will be, once more, the ordinary man who will have to pay.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. Harold Macmilian: It is a very old and great tradition of this country to take a great interest in the claims of minorities, particularly minorities that may be thought to be the subjects of injustice or persecution. Therefore, I think it is quite in line with that tradition that the Leader of the Opposition willingly gave this part of the Supply Day belonging, to the Opposition in order that we might have a Debate upon this question. It is not a Party question. There will be no Division taken. Therefore, the Committee can, perhaps with special freedom, rise to the great tradition of a deliberative assembly on an important public issue. My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), and those who supported him, made a very moving case, and I have no complaint—nobody could have any complaint—with the general principles they put forward. Within the limit of their argument, I thought it was very conclusive. But, of course, there are broader points, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Benn Levy) has reminded us, which also have to be taken in conjunction with this single issue. I hope I may be allowed to develop, very shortly, some of those broader points.
I had rather hoped that the Foreign Secretary would have given a lead to the


Committee, in accordance with tradition, at an earlier stage of this Debate. I am sure that, in similar circumstances, my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) would have done so. But I realise that the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, admirable as he is in frontal action, is very much seized with the tactical importance of never allowing his rear to be uncovered; and I would observe, that he always finishes Debates, and scarcely ever initiates them or takes part in the earlier stages of the proceedings. So, it is left to me, on behalf of my colleagues, to do my best, without all that information which the Foreign Secretary has available, to state some considerations which, I think, the Committee should have in mind.
First of all I want to make clear, what I think has been obscure, that this matter did not arise and was not dealt with by the former Foreign Secretary, either in the Coalition or Conservative Governments. The Moscow Declaration of 1943 has nothing whatever to do with the case, in the sense of settling this issue one way or the other. The Moscow Declaration declared void the German annexation of Austria. It declared that the Anschluss and everything done by Hitlerite Germany would have no weight with us, the victorious Allies, and the victorious Allies would wipe it away. It also called upon Austria in that year to make an effort themselves.
Austria is reminded, however, that she has a responsibility which she cannot evade for participation in the war on the side of Hitlerite Germany, and that in the final settlement account will inevitably be taken of her own contributions to her liberation.
I mention that because there has been some obscurity. I want to make it clear that, so far as the Moscow Declaration is concerned, it leaves these boundaries absolutely open to be decided by the Peace Conference, or the great Allies, as they think fit. There is no binding agreement.
I think it is very important that we should not be partisans in these disputed questions of foreign affairs so long as they are disputable. I agree that when right and justice are patently on one side, or when the rule of law has been challenged, we should stand out as fearless champions of the right cause. In those cases it is not merely a question of individual interest of a nation, but the whole world

interest which is threatened by a breach of the rule of law.
It is very difficult, I think, for Englishmen to avoid the temptation to think of particular friendships which they have created by their own contacts. They get very fond of people among whom the}' have lived, and particularly of the people for whom they have tried to work. This is an excellent trait, but it has certain dangers. I say this because I do not wish to be thought to be governed by any kind of bias or partiality in these matters. During recent years, I have tried to deal successively with French, Italian and Greek affairs. It was my good fortune to take some part in the restoration of the unity and pride of France, our ancient and dear Ally. In Italy I was present at the time, glorious in Anglo-American history, when the conquering and victorious armies turned immediately from the task of war to civil reconstruction, and in Greece after the suppression of an attempt to seize power by revolutionary conspiracy, when all our efforts were to bring counsels of moderation and reconciliation. Except for a few weeks right at the end of the campaign, I had no personal contact with Austria.
I want to make it clear that in anything I say I have not fallen to those particular partialities one gets from contacts of that kind. I deeply cherish all the friendships in France, Italy and Greece which I have made during those years. We must try to think of the future, and not, as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough has wisely reminded us, too much of the past. We are indeed a generous nation, but it is not possible altogether to forget the past, and in this respect both Italy and Austria are ex-enemy countries, and both were governed by similar systems, Fascist or Nazi. The Italians did great evil in Greece and in the Balkans.
The Austrian Fascists, who, as the hon. and learned Member for Windsor (Major Mott-Radclyffe) reminded us, were largely recruited from this very area, did dreadful things in Rome, and, right at the end of the campaign, against the Italian partisans at Belluno. Both nations naturally disclaimed particular responsibility for these deeds done by previous Governments. It is said, I believe, that a nation has the government which it deserves. That is, indeed, a hard saying and, I think, cannot


be pressed too far because, after all, the British people have done well. Both nations are trying to restore democracy. Both are struggling against this past, and are trying to think of the future. Both of them, no doubt, would have tried to free themselves from this incubus had they found it possible. The Italians did succeed in 1943—

Mr. Boothby: I think that there is a slight difference between Italy and Austria, because Italy had embraced Fascism at one moment, and Austria was conquered forcibly by Hitler.

Mr. Macmillan: A great part of Austria returned the embrace with good will. Italy did manage to throw it off in 1943. For two hard years she had to work her passage. Three hundred thousand Service troops were made available. Six Italian gruppi, or divisions, took a vital part in the final stages of the campaign. There has been a good deal of talk about the partisan movement in Northern Italy, and I think that Field-Marshal Alexander would testify that without the efforts of the partisans we would not have brought that campaign to such a rapid and successful conclusion. Therefore, in considering this, we have to face realities. Italy has been brought up against territorial claims from four quarters: from France, from Greece, from Yugoslavia, and this Austrian demand. She has freely granted to France five out of seven claims. She has only disputed two, in which she has been overruled. One was the case of the Mont Cenis plateau, vital because of its hydro-electric workings and because the lake Moncenisio feeds the power stations which remain in Italian territory. The other was the case of Tenda and Brega where the claim of the Italians is partly ethnic and partly economic. To Greece they have admitted that they should quite properly hand over the Dodecanese. To Yugoslavia they had to make considerable concessions but I regard the settlement, to which the Foreign Secretary has no doubt had to agree, as the best that he could get, as unfortunate.
I could have understood adopting the French line had that been the final settlement and Trieste and all West of the French line remaining permanently in the Italian hands. But if it was to be left unsettled, and it was to be an international field, then it ought to have been

on the British line. That is the maximum territory in dispute. Therefore, the Italians have suffered a good deal. I think that in the bottom of their hearts the Italians probably would say to themselves that France, Greece, Yugoslavia; after all, were always on the Allied side. We must admit that an honest Italian would say that concessions made to them would in the long run be less felt in Italy because, after all, this is the penalty of defeat. It is not quite the same with Austria. Side by side with us, the Italian army engaged against the Austrian troops right up to the end of the campaign, and that psychological factor must be borne in mind.
The other general proposition which I should like to put forward in all these disputed claims is that, if they are taken singly, there is a tremendous lot to be said on both sides. That is one of the difficulties of getting the settlement. There are many factors to be taken into consideration, historical, ethnical, economic and strategic. In fact, no settlement can be made which does not attempt to strike a balance between all these considerations. We cannot "plump" entirely for one or the other. From the historical point of view, the claim to the Brenner Pass has been one of the oldest claims of Italy ever since the beginning of the Risorgimento. We have heard today about Garibaldi and Mazzini. This claim to the Brenner Pass is one which both Garibaldi and Mazzini put forward against the Austrian Empire.
The Economic question of the Tyrol is an important consideration and it cannot be left out of account. Ethnically, there is, of course, a balance certainly in the Austrian claim. There are 161,000 Italians, I think that is the present figure, as against 110,000. Strategically I would only say that nobody, not even the Romans, has ever succeeded in invading Europe from South to North through the Brenner Pass. That honour was retained for the victorious American and British troops but only after the end of the campaign. It has never been done in actual warfare. But how many times in history has there been a successful invasion of Italy from (North to South? I am bound to say that while it may not be a fashionable doctrine I should feel a little happier if the Brenner Pass were in hands where we have a considerable amount of influence in the future. Italian Govern-


ment policy and profession as to the new regime which they propose to introduce are certainly admirable in their aims. Nobody who has read the decrees or studied them carefully could fail to admit that they arc most generous concessions in autonomy, the return of the German language; indeed, an attempt to undo the brutal follies of the Mussolini persecution.

Mr. Boothby: They are establishing a Fascist regime.

Mr. Macmillan: I was very much moved by the evidence which my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (brought -Forward that these provisions were not being carried out.

Mr. Boothby: Of course, they are not.

Mr. Macmillan: If that is so, I think the Foreign Secretary will agree that great responsibility lies upon the Great Powers to insist that they shall be carried out. I do not believe that the present Italian Government, who are really trying to establish a decent, democratic way of life, arc trying to bluff us over this. They may not, of course, have full control of the Italian organisation of government, because they are only just rebuilding the government of Italy, but I am certain that the Foreign Secretary will use every effort to insist that they are carried out not only in the letter, but in the spirit. In all these varying considerations I find it very difficult to reach a definite conclusion for one side or the other, but I do feel in my own heart that the only final solution will be by direct negotiation and agreement between Austria and Italy. I believe that along the lines of attempts of these two nations, now restoring or trying to restore their democratic government lies the hope of a more happy solution for the future than if this Committee tonight were to come down on either one side or the other, and appear to endorse those recriminations over a sad past rather than look more hopefuly to the future.
As one who speaks with some emotion on a matter which is so dear to us all, and after having seen so many sad disputes in the Mediterranean area, I think we must look at the European peace settlement as a whole. I should be sorry if this House were to decide one way or the other on one individual, selected, problem, taken out of the whole. If we do that, if we think of the special item,

what is the result? It is that the process of the Balkanisation of Western Europe is being developed. That is its real danger. What is the true and best tradition of Europe? It is metropolitan, and not provincial; Imperial in the best sense, and not national; catholic, and not sectarian. Europe is old, alas, perhaps, too old, but its true traditions are these. It was the rise of nationalism and individualism, beginning with the Reformation and Renaissance, which brought splendid and glittering benefits to mankind. It brought many noble deeds and high traditions; it made great contributions to the British character and its development, but it contained the seeds of danger, even decay. Nationalism in an extreme form led to Chauvinism, a militarism, and destruction of Europe by itself. Individualism, preached to the extreme, taught man to elevate his status above its true position, to forget God, and led to atheism and communism. The need for Europe is to revert to its old tradition, and not to concentrate on the disputes which spring from the nationalist traditions of the last few centuries. Its need is cooperation, even fusion, certainly economic, and probably political. To return to this immediate problem, Italian democracy, the tender plant which we are trying to re-establish, cherish and strengthen should, I believe, in direct negotiation with the new Austrian democracy, look towards economic fusion and assistance, rather than to redevelopment of these old political boundary disputes.
As for Austria's future, it lies Westwards and Southwards, and nowhere else. Therefore, when all these disputes in which Italy is now engaged affect those countries, do not let us forget that France, Italy and Austria have the same great traditions, both in the civil and religious sphere. These territorial disputes have caused friction out of all proportion to their true importance. We should throw our influence towards harmony and reconciliation. We should beware of making a Parliamentary decision at this moment on this single issue, for I verily believe that if it is by this method that the map of Europe is to be redrawn, if this is to be the future of Europe, then there is no future for Europe. Europe, or what is left of Europe, must unite, and must be rebuilt on the basis of unity. The word "European" must be


restored in the language, and have meaning. The New World, in this respect, is giving a great example to the old, and, on the American Continent steps are being taken far more effectively than in the old world. I think we have a particular part to play, because we have shown that in our own association of peoples, in our own Commonwealth, we have been able to make a combination of freedom and order. Therefore, I trust we shall do our best to elevate these questions beyond these immediate disputes, not make a decision now upon one small portion, however important it is to the people concerned, of the whole picture, but rather throw our weight into a purpose which, I believe, is essential if Europe is to be preserved, the writing away of these purely national boundaries and disputes, and the bringing into being of a new economic and even political order.

Mr. Wilson Harris: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is the position of His Majesty's Opposition that they have no views as to whether the Southern Tyrol should be Austrian or should be Italian?

8.52 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Like the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), I find myself in a difficulty in dealing with just one phase of a long and protracted negotiation. I also find it difficult to place a complete picture before the Committee, in view of all the problems one is trying to deal with in Europe at the present moment. This story of Austria was dealt with during the days of the Coalition Government. Much has been said today about the Atlantic Charter. I make this solemn confession. I was a party in that Government to the Atlantic Charter, and one of my first experiences, almost before the ink was dry, was to find myself, in that Cabinet, deciding whether I would accede to the new Polish frontiers, which I have never yet been able to reconcile with the Atlantic Charter, but to which the very necessities of war at that time compelled me to agree. I ask the Committee to remember how difficult these circumstances are. I have heard a good deal today about the 250,000—rather fewer than 200,000 now—German-speaking people in the Tyrol. I have had to face the move-

ment of millions of German-speaking people from East Prussia. The first day I was in office, when I went to Potsdam, I had to face the demand for the new Polish frontier on the Oder, by which 13 million people had up to that time been driven Westwards. In the end I agreed that it should be administered as a Polish zone, because I felt there was nothing else to do in the light of the circumstances that war had created.
Since I have been in office I have seen over 2,000,000 Sudeten Germans go out of Czechoslovakia and I have seen millions of people in Europe hounded from pillar to post, and whoever was or was not responsible for the war I can never get out of my mind the conviction that ordinary men and women are never responsible for war. They may be incited to support this or that leader, they may be organised in this or that way to support a particular nationalism, but left alone they are ordinary decent people who live ordinary decent lives, and there is not much difference between these races, if left alone, any more than there is between a Scotsman, a Welshman, or an Englishman.

Sir Patrick Hannon: Or an Irishman.

Mr. Bevin: Or an Irishman. One thing that I am always thankful for is that I have not the principle of self-determination to apply to Glasgow—or even to New York. This question of setting race against race is, I think, one of the horrors that have developed in the last 30 or 40 years. I am told that the Tyrolese are people who have lived there for many years, but if one talks to Italians about the Hapsburg monarchy they will always remind one that it was the Tyrolese who found most of the soldiers to defeat or resist Garibaldi, so I do not think that playing on the names of these patriots has anything very much to do with the present situation.
The problem of Austria was raised at Moscow in 1943 and this was the decision, although no one has mentioned it; it was reported to the House at that time, but when my predecessor made the report not a voice was raised:
Having taken counsel together in the spirit of the Atlantic Charter"—
It is good to have a text: if one cannot get it out of the New Testament, one


should go to the Old, but one should always have a text—
the Governments of the United Kingdom, the U.S.S.R. and the United States are agreed that Austria, the first free country to fall a victim to Nazi aggression, shall be liberated from German domination. They regard the union imposed upon Austria by Germany"—
I emphasise those words—
They regard the union imposed upon Austria"—
not the Versailles Treaty—
the union imposed upon Austria by Germany on 15th March 1938 as null and void. They consider themselves as in no way bound by any changes effected in Austria since that date, they declare that they wish to see re-established a free and independent Austria, and thereby to open the way for the Austrian people themselves to find, in association with those neighbouring States which will be faced with similar problems, that political and economic security which is the only basis for lasting peace. The Austrian people must, however, remember that they have a responsibility which they cannot evade and that in a final settlement account will inevitably be taken of their own contribution to the liberation of their country.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but while he was not in the Committee I did make reference to the Moscow Declaration. I said, I think with truth, that the Moscow Declaration left the matter completely open; it did not limit what was to be the frontier of Italy but merely stated, as the right hon. Gentleman has now read out, that the German occupation of Austria was to be considered null and void. This left the matter completely open and it was never settled by that Declaration what was to be the final settlement of the Austrian frontier. I wish to make that point because I think it is fair that it should be made; I leave the other argument where it rests.

Mr. Bevin: I am coming to that point in a moment. We have to read these words in conjunction with another matter, with which the right hon. Gentleman was associated, the Armistice made with Italy. At no point in the making of that Armistice was there a suggestion that Italian territory would be disturbed. It was Italy as she then stood with whom we made the Armistice, and made the declaration that if she worked her passage we should do certain things.

Mr. Boothby: What about Brega and Tenda?

Mr. Bevin: I am also coming to that in a moment. It is true that no one stipulated that there should be no change of any kind in frontiers. Let me remind the Committee that Austria is not yet free. One does not know whether Eastern Austria may not be cut off. The situation is very delicate, even at the present moment. The trend of things makes one wonder what the ultimate fait accompli might be. I have to watch that as well. The right hon. Gentleman said that we have to take economic and strategic considerations, and various other things, into account. The decision on Austria was not made at Paris. It was made in London last September. At that time I was not forced to agree to it. I am not going to say so in this Committee. If I agree, I must take my responsibility for agreeing; I am not going to hide behind a plea that I was forced to do a thing. I did it, and I did it with my eyes open.
We got to the question of beginning the Peace Treaties, as laid down at Potsdam, before I went there. The Committee will remember that four countries were to discuss the Peace Treaty with Italy. Three countries had to discuss the Peace Treaty with the German satellite States and two countries had to discuss the Peace Treaty with Finland. That was the Moscow arrangement of the Council of Foreign Ministers. I will not criticise it, but it has given me a few headaches ever since to work it. That Council is certainly not a peace conference by any stretch of imagination. The House of Commons agreed to the Potsdam decisions, and I have to carry them through.
There were always suggestions by other States surrounding Austria at that time that claims should be made upon even her limited territory. Rumours were abroad in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia about eating into even the small Austrian territory as it was. Austria was at that time occupied and governed by the Allied Control Council, and was a long way from being independent. It is not independent yet. I felt that it was wise, in the light of those circumstances, to begin to recreate Austria and to make sure that the Moscow decision was translated into fact by a decision of the Council of Foreign Ministers, before we began the discussion of any other Treaty. I think that was a very wise step. Therefore, the


decision was that the frontier with Austria would not be changed subject to the decisions to be reached by the Council on any case which Austria may present for minor rectifications in her favour. I thought it was wise to stop a whole lot of claims coming and disrupting this country, which was created so badly by the Versailles Treaty.
The question then was—what is a minor rectification? I must confess to the Committee that I thought at the time that an area such as Pusterthal with the railway running round would have been regarded as a minor rectification. I have no doubt that this will be argued at the Peace Conference. But in the end, in view of all the difficulties that arose with regard to Trieste, and all the other lines that have been argued, I gave way on that point to make sure of maintaining a definite decision, and that I did not regret. In connection with this, a lot of people—and in this Committee today— keep talking about the independence of European countries. I wish these people would start using another word—the "inter-dependence" of European countries. Whenever one comes to this wretched problem of trying to create independent countries, with its exchange balances and its uneconomic frontiers, one is absolutely driven to desperation whichever way one goes. The river is on one side, the railway is on another; the village is on one side and the market is on the other. Really, this attempt to cut up Europe into all these independencies, which rose out of the Wilson formula, drives me to desperation in attempting to get any economic order for Europe. I do not make any apology for saying that. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris) has made reference to the Wilson position. I have looked at the line that Wilson drew. Wilson proposed to put into Italy Merano, Bolzano, down the Pusterthal and right down to Albona in Venezia Giulia. That was the Wilson line, but after his discussions and at a later date—although he acknowledged, as I understand, that he regretted it—he did include the Brenner. I have met Dr. Gruber and I have met his attacks.
My view about this bit of territory, which has about 200,000 people, is this. I must not use the word "anschluss," I suppose, but if I may use it as an illus-

tration, the solution is an anschluss Southwards and not Northwards, and merging economically, by trade and customs unions, Austria with Italy and the territories to the South. It is said that they are an agricultural community, but there is one great income they threw away under Mussolini. As I have said to the Italians and the Austrians, they ought to restore it. If one looks at the line which is called the French line from Trieste through Gorizia to the North to the Brenner, it is all in Italian territory. That, I think, is an advantage, and there is a market, if handled properly, for a tourist traffic in this territory which ought to enhance the standard of living enormously, if there are no passports, no visas and no blockages of one kind or another. I am aiming for that. I really want to see that. I made a reservation in the Paris Conference which all the four Powers accepted, that on the railway running from the Brenner around to Lienz there shall be no barrier of any kind in order that communication right through Europe up to the Brenner may be free for all people, and the Italians must not put any blockage in the way of people moving about in that area. Economically, I think it is a great advance. These experts are really marvellous about electric units. I do not know anybody who can prove that something was unnecessary so well as a person who talks about voltages and units. The fact is that there will be very little electricity drawn by Austria from those watersheds and from the electric stations on that side. On the other hand, I am quite convinced that it is a great economic asset for both.
What is the use of deducting railways? One of the economic necessities of a district is electric railways, and if anyone tells me that all Italy uses is so much per cent. when you deduct the railways, I say that one of the first great advantages in this area right through into Switzerland is having these great electric railways. Therefore, the development of electricity on that side is very important. If the territory remains where it is, what is to prevent the Italians and the Austrians having joint public utility companies for its proper development? That is what I have put to both of them. I think it would be of enormous advantage.
The same thing has happened on the Mont Cenis on the French side. It is said


that we have left the water in France and the power stations in Italy. We have made provisions that the water must always be available to Italy, and it would be a contravention of the treaty if at any time France prevented the water being used for electrical development on the Italian side. It is the same with Tenda and Briga; the electric power stations are on the French side there, and the Italians, if they were wicked, could interfere with the electric power right down to Nice quite easily if there was a big development in that territory. We have therefore taken precautions in the treaty that neither the French nor the Italians must interfere with the supply of power on either side of the watershed in that territory.

Mr. Wilson Harris: I agree entirely with what the right hon. Gentleman has said about hydro-electric power, but would it not be equally true if the Southern Tyrol were Austrian?

Mr, Bevin: No, I do not think so, because the economic draw for the electricity is towards Italy and not into Austria from that territory.

Mr. Harris: It would still run there.

Mr. Bevin: That is a matter of opinion, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the hydro-electric experts who have been studying the problem say that the great economic connection is the line I have indicated.
As to the ethnic principle, this is a very difficult one, and it cannot be dealt with in complete isolation. Take the line referred to by the right hon. Gentleman with regard to Trieste. I would have liked at least to get that line down to the Canal, if not farther, but there were certain difficulties to go South of the original British line to Pola. I do not think it is wise, unless the treaty is discussed as a whole, that I should enumerate them tonight. However, they are pretty obvious when you are dealing with the Slav countries in the orbit of the Russian influence. In connection with that, one had to have regard to the claims made for North Africa by the Russians, and Tripolitania and many other claims. The hon. Member for, is it North Aberdeen?

Mr. Boothby: No, East Aberdeen.

Mr. Bevin: I am surprised that it is East, because wise men come from the East. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) said, "I would hand Tripolitania to Italy" Would he? What about the ethnic principle there? There are only 40,000 Italians in Tripolitania; there are 395,000 Arabs

Mr. Boothby: I said I would give a Mandate under the United Nations organisation.

Mr. Bevin: Yes, but if you have a Mandate, you govern the country. Why should you give it to Italy, when all the country is Arab? You are willing to hand over Tripolitania. Is it because they are Arabs, and the others are Germans?

Mr. Boothby: But are you going to give it to the Arabs?

Mr. Bevin: That is not settled yet, but we have given a pledge to the Senussi, and I am not going back on it. If the Senussi came to help the Desert Rats I am not going to desert them now. Remember that the Senussi live right up into Tripolitania, and they are Arabs, and I have to have regard to them. That is one of my big contests that has gone on in the Conference. I have created the situation that in accordance with our pledge the Arabs have to be heard as well as the neighbouring territories before that issue is finally settled. I say, Do not have one gospel for the Tyrolese, and another for the Arabs.

Mr. Boothby: The right hon. Gentleman said that the Arabs had got to be heard. When has he ever said that the Tyrolese have got to be heard?

Mr. Bevin: I will deal with that. On the question of the Tyrolese and the North of Italy, nowhere in the Atlantic Charter was it ever suggested that territory had automatically to be transferred differently than the way it was dealt with in 1919. It is open for claims to be made, and the Tyrolese will have a right to be heard at the Peace Conference. This is the first Peace Conference where the defeated nations have a right to be heard equally with the victorious nations, and where the Treaty has been sent to every nation —to the defeated as well as the victorious —in order that they can state their case.

Mr. Boothby: Will they be heard in Paris?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, certainly.

Mr. Wilson Harris: This is very important. When the right hon. Gentleman says that the Tyrolese will have an opportunity of stating their case, does he mean that he is open to persuasion? Has a binding decision not yet been taken?

Mr. Bevin: I would not say that. In a Conference with four Foreign Ministers, when one deals with a recommendation, it is like a Cabinet of this House. One argues one's recommendation, but it is open to 21 nations to reverse it. That is their business. Let this be said, instead of we four Foreign Ministers expecting the whole Conference to be a rubber stamp to everything we have done, we have undertaken to take account before the final draft of every recommendation made by the Conference I do not think we could do more than that. I have not tried to ignore the rights even of the defeated nations. In my opinion a mistake was made at Versailles. I think a mistake was made in not bringing Russia to the Versailles Conference. I think the whole of the world's history would have been different if that had been done. This is not a new idea, I said so at the time.

Mr. Follick: They were not even brought in.

Mr. Bevin: They were not even brought in and when they arrived at Cannes two statesmen had a golf match and upset the whole show. But in this case I am particularly anxious to see and hear what is said on these issues. The Italians are very upset with this Treaty. It is alleged by their Press and their statesmen, we have dealt with them very hardly. Personally, I do not think so. We have left the Colonial problem open. I do not think there was any claim by the Italians to Fiume. I think the escapades of D'Annunzio, which were officially given authority by the Powers afterwards, were a profound mistake. There is a debatable point about Pola, but there there is a great naval base. True, it is wrecked at the moment. It is not a commercial place in the ordinary sense of the term, like Trieste.
There is a case, and I am bound to confess it,which no doubt they will argue, about these little towns down the coast line. I feel that a case was made out—

but in the inner conference agreement had to be obtained—that in the end they might have come further South. As I have already said, when it comes to Trieste itself I had to ask myself this—I fought for Italy to the end, I do not apologise for it, but all the time I had this lurking fear—if Italy is the sole possessor of Trieste on a purely nationalistic basis will Trieste serve her purpose for middle and Southern Europe? As the Committee knows, I am an old transport man, and I can never get out of my head the desirability of a great port of that character being so developed as to serve not one nation but to be an outlet for all those nations in middle and southern Europe.
Let me put another consideration. Supposing the line had been drawn as the Italians wanted. The Italians are a defeated nation. Supposing that armies were lined up on the frontier, with the opportunities present of a coup again, such as occurred at Fiume at the end of the last war. With the irredentist feeling in the Slavs, who want this outlet, would Italy be able to defend it? What would be the position? I am making quite a frank statement to the Committee. I came to the conclusion, in the end, after weighing all the considerations that the probability was that in Italy's own interest, a strip of territory, guaranteed by the United Nations, not like Danzig, not with a corridor across it, but a kind of Hanseatic port, serving the great European area, would serve a better purpose, and make a meeting ground between the Austrians, the Slavs and the Italians, not only on the ground of race, but on the common ground of commerce and production in that area.
I took the risk, and I do not apologise for it. I think that if the Italians will bury their feelings and if the Slavs will drop their racial antagonism which has been developed over centuries, and if they will now turn together in this enclave from Monfalcone down to the South of Trieste, they can make that a meeting ground for commerce, for business, for shipbuilding, for an outlet to that great territory. We desire to bring some of the other races into cooperation, particularly in the port organisation. I repeat we have provided for international territory, not only in Trieste. But in any case the port has to be an international port. In that sense I want to see Czechoslovakia play her


part. If we are to prevent a resurgence of Germany, particularly of Prussia, I am attracted by the idea of bringing European commerce more to the Mediterranean and less to the Baltic. If the southern German area, and Austria and the States around there and Czechoslovakia—are attracted by a well developed, well financed United Nations port like Trieste, which will not be a strategic port, which will be purely a Hanseatic commercial port, with that common ground, and looking 20 years ahead, I see the possibility of a great unification in the economic field in that area.
I hope I shall be justified in the judgment at which I arrived. In the North I felt that, after what we had done to satisfy the Yugoslavs in the South, we were on common ground in dealing with Trieste. I have made it quite clear, as an old port man, that the point of delivery from rail to ship should be equal for everybody in the world, with charges the same, barging the same, overside, shore side, all the same to every nationality in the world. I felt that really I have done a good job as far as Trieste was concerned. That is what we must strive for, that is the basis. Having done that, should I rob, shall I say, or make more difficult the position of Italy in her recreation? On the pure ethnic ground, I had 200,000 out of a population in Europe of many millions. I weighed the economic advantages, I weighed the opportunity of Austria combining with Italy in a common customs union, or something of the. kind, coming south in her development and associating again on this little bit of territory of the Bolzano province, and uniting together with Italy. Weighing it altogether, I believe the combined effort is in the interests of Austria, Italy, and the middle European territories.

Mr. H. Macmillan: With your permission. Major Milner, I would like just to make one or two observations to the Committee before you put the Question. It used to be the custom in past years for the Opposition to oppose the great majority of the outstanding Votes on these last two allotted Supply days. Later, it became the custom to vote against certain Classes. If, for instance, one takes Class V, the Opposition might oppose it on the ground that they are not satisfied with the Government's handling of housing; but if one examines Class V it

is found to contain a number of Votes in addition to the Ministry of Health— for instance, old age pensions and supplementary pensions. Class VI contains the Vote of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, which we debated yesterday when the Opposition expressed their dissatisfaction by moving a reduction, but it also contains the Vote for food production services, the Forestry Commission, the Development Fund, and so forth. Therefore, we have been giving very careful consideration to the policy which, as a responsible Opposition, we should follow in dealing with this matter, and I rise to say on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these Benches that in view of the manner in which these numerous Votes are grouped, it is not the intention of the Opposition on this occasion to oppose them.
We have had the customary opportunity during the year of discussing individual Votes on the allotted Supply days and we feel, having availed ourselves of this, that we should allow the matter to rest at that on this occasion. There may be a case for regrouping these numerous Votes which at present amount to ten Classes not including the Service and Revenue Departments. These ten Classes contain a total of 147 Votes. I do not, therefore, wish it to be thought because we do not oppose any of these Classes on this occasion that it will necessarily be the practice for all time. It will be a matter for decision as to what is the wise, sensible, practical course to pursue.

Resolved:
That a sum not exceeding £2,292,030 be granted to His Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the salary of a Minister of State.

The CHAIRMAN then proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, forthwith to put severally the Questions. "That the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the several Classes of the Civil Estimates, including Supplementary Estimates, and the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Revenue Departments, the Navy, Army and Air Services be granted for the Services defined in those Classes and Estimates":

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1946

CLASS I

That a sum, not exceeding £7,344,168, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class I of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
House of Lords Offices
45,067


1A.
House of Lords
12,000


2.
House of Commons (including a Supplementary sum of £259,708)
629,445


3.
Registration of Electors
270,000


4.
Treasury and Subordinate Departments (Revised sum)
1,463,086


5.
Privy Council Office
15,804


6.
Privy Seal Office
7,402


7.
Charity Commission
33,506


8.
Civil Service Commission
146,810


9.
Exchequer and Audit Department
206,150


10.
Government Actuary
25,927


11.
Government Chemist
95,158


12.
Government Hospitality
33,000


13.
The Mint
90


14.
National Debt Office
5,177


15.
National Savings Committee
977,374


16.
Overlapping Income Tax Payments
1,400,000


17.
Public Record Office
36,848


18.
Public Works Loan Commission
90


19.
Repayments to the Local Loans Fund
16,264


20.
Royal Commissions, &amp;c.
121,000


21.
Secret Service
1,500,000


22.
Tithe Redemption Commission
90


23.
Treasury Chest Fund
3,779


24.
Miscellaneous Expenses (including a Supplementary sum of £5,450)
93,001


24A.
Repayments to the Civil Contingencies Fund
14,243


25.
Scottish Home Department
192,857




£7,344,168"

CLASS II

That a sum, not exceeding £51,745,328, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class II of the Civil Estimates, namely;

£


2.
Diplomatic and Consular Establishments, &amp;c.
7,341,280


3.
British Council
1,654,000


4.
League of Nations
4,010


5.
United Nations
55,000


6.
Dominions Office
86,610


7.
Dominion Services
436,469

£


8.
Oversea Settlement
5,465


10.
Colonial and Middle Eastern Services (including a Supplementary sum of £1,610,010)
7,975,044


11.
West African Produce Control Board
4,580,025


12.
Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
6,840,000


13.
Development and Welfare (South African High Commission Territories)
209,600


14.
India and Burma Services (including a supplementary sum of £37,500)
22,213,729


15.
Imperial War Graves Commission
344,096




£51,745,328"

CLASS III

That a sum, not exceeding £18,128,228, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class III of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Home Office
1,147,812


2.
Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
100,045


3.
Police, England and Wales
9,574,714


4.
Prisons, England and Wales
2,444,726


5.
Approved Schools, &amp;c, England and Wales
1,214,900


6.
Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c. (including a Supplementary sum of £143,000)
143,090


7.
County Courts, &amp;c.
345,506


8.
Land Registry
90


9.
Public Trustee
77,200


10.
Law Charges
231,827


11.
Miscellaneous Legal Expenses
21,101


Scotland


12.
Police
1,764,840


13.
Prisons
239,110


14.
Approved Schools, &amp;c.
137,500


15.
Scottish Land Court
5,967


16.
Law Charges and Courts of Law
62,901


17.
Register House, Edinburgh
4,225


Ireland


18.
Northern Ireland Services
3,519


19.
Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c, Northern Ireland
12,601


20.
Irish Land Purchase Services
596,554




£18,128,228"

CLASS IV

"That a sum, not exceeding £90,374,800 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IV of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Ministry of Education (including a Supplementary sum of £195,000)
70,175,112


2.
British Museum (including a Supplementary sum of £60,000)
208,762


3.
British Museum (Natural History)
99,781


4.
Imperial War Museum
13,608


5.
London Museum
8,356


6.
National Gallery (including a Supplementary sum of £6,900)
38,577


7.
National Maritime Museum
9,392


8.
National Portrait Gallery
9,297


9.
Wallace Collection
12,515


10.
Scientific Investigation, etc.
515,761


11.
Universities and Colleges, etc., Great Britain
6,450,000


12.
Broadcasting
3,750,000


Scotland


13.
Public Education
9,065,268


14.
National Galleries
14,376


15.
National Library
3,995




£90,374,800"

>CLASS V

"That a sum, not exceeding £243,321,300, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class V of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Ministry of Health (in-cluding a Supplementary sum of £10)
39,309,850


2.
Board of Control
170,152


3.
Registrar-General's Office
288,160


4.
Ministry of Labour and National Service (including a Supplementary sum of £10)
21,476,010


5.
Grants in respect of Employment Schemes
900,000


6.
Ministry of National Insurance
60,527,000


7.
Assistance Board
5,700,000


8.
National Insurance Audit Department
106,960


9.
Friendly Societies Registry
32,570


10.
Old Age Pensions
84,000,000


11.
Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions
6,025,000


12.
Supplementary Pensions
16,650,000


13.
Ministry of Town and Country Planning
1,454,267





£


Scotland


14.
Department of Health (including a Supplementary sum of £10)
6,621,220


15.
Board of Control
20,616


16.
Registrar-General's Office
39,495




£243,321,300 "

CLASS VI

"That a sum, not exceeding £104,980,987, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in' respect of the Services included in Class VI of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Board of Trade
13,103,380


2.
Services in Development Areas
7,430,000


3.
Financial Assistance in Development Areas
589,500


4.
Export Credits
90


5.
Export Credits (Special Guarantees)
5,000


6.
Ministry of Fuel and Power
2,080,000


7.
Office of Commissioners of Crown Lands
29,654


8.
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
5,776,693


9.
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Food Production Services) (including Supplementary sums of £600,000 and £550,000)
32,679,500


10.
Surveys of Great Britain, etc.
967,561


11.
Forestry Commission
2,000,000


12.
Development Fund
670,000


13.
Ministry of Transport
3,104,423


14.
Roads, etc.
13,175,000


15.
Mercantile Marine Services
2,612,855


16.
Ministry of Civil Aviation
13,200,000


17.
Development Grants
126,180


18.
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
1,740,934


19.
State Management Districts
90


20.
Clearing Offices (including a Supplementary sum of £34,076)
34,166


Scotland


21.
Department of Agriculture
1,084,021


22.
Department of Agriculture (Food Production Services) (including Supplementary sums of £198,000 and £50,000)
3,913,000


23.
Fisheries
228,750


24.
Herring Industry
430,190




£104,980,987"

CLASS VII

"That a sum, not exceeding £56,644,151, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VII of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Ministry of Works
4,780,680


2.
Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain (including a Supple-mentary sum of £10,000)
467,965


3.
Houses of Parliament Buildings
335,390


4.
Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain
88,395


5.
Osborne
21,765


6.
Public Buildings Great Britain (including a Supplementary sum of £10)
28,866,340


7. 
Public Buildings Overseas
408,720


8.
Royal Palaces
167,165


9.
Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens
278,380


10.
Miscellaneous Works Services (including a Supplementary sum of £525,000)
3,347,610


10A.
Victory Celebrations
282,500


11.
Rates on Government Property
6,678,695


12.
Stationery and Printing
9,085,806


13.
Central Office of Information
1,751,300


14.
Peterhead Harbour
7,000


15.
Works and Buildings in Ireland
70,440




£56,644,151"

CLASS VIII

"That a sum, not exceeding £67,413,465, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VIII of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Merchant Seamen's War Pensions
…
171,465


2. 
Ministry of Pensions
…
63,747,000


3. 
Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, etc
…
795,000


4. 
Superannuation and Retired Allowances
…
2,700,000





£67,413,465 "

CLASS IX

"That a sum, not exceeding £42,408,896, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year

ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IX of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, England and Wales
…
35,520,000


2.
Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, Scotland
…
6,888,896





£42,408,896"

CLASS X

"That a sum, not exceeding £545.330,555, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class X of the Civil Estimates, namely:

£


1.
Ministry of Supply
224,000,000


1A.
British Supply Office in the United States of America
959,000


2.
Ministry of Food
144,837,740


3.
Ministry of Transport (War Services)
78,475,000


4.
Ministry of Fuel and Power (War Services)
10,300,000


5.
Home Office (War Services)
19,989,765


7.
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
57,000,000


8.
Advances to Allies, etc.
5,000,000


9.
War Damage Commission
933,500


10.
War Service Grants
3,125,000


11.
Scottish Home Department (War Services)
710,550




£545,330,555"

REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1946

"That a sum, not exceeding £103,493,020, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in the Estimates for Revenue Departments, namely:

£


1.
Customs and Excise
…
5,212,400


2.
Inland Revenue
…
10,860,620


3.
Post Office
…
87,420,000





£103,493,020"

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1946

"That a sum, not exceeding £105,075,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for


Expenditure in respect of the Navy Services, namely:

£


1.
Wages, &amp;c, of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and Women's Royal Naval Service (in addition to the sum of £52,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
35,290,000


2.
Victualling and Clothing for the Navy (in addition to the sum of £11, 500,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
8,135,000


3.
Medical Establishments and Services (in addition to the sum of £1,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
889,000


4.
Civilians employed on Fleet Services (in addition to the sum of £1,500,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
975,000


5.
Educational Services (in addition to the sum of £200,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
219,000


6.
Scientific Services (in addition to the sum of £2,500,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
2,294,000


7.
Royal Naval Reserves (in addition to the sum of £200,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
160,000


8. 
Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &amp;c:—Section I.—Personnel (in addition to the sum of £14,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
9,595,000



Section II.—Mateèriel (in addition to the sum of £17,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
11,626,000



Section III. — Contract Work (in addition to the sum of £19,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
13,275,000


9.
Naval Armaments (in addition to the sum of £5,700,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
4,208,000

Question put, and agreed to.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1946

"That a sum, not exceeding £232,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Army Services, namely:

£


1.
Pay, etc., of the Army (in addition to the sum of £148,500,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
76,511,000


2.
Reserve Forces (to a number not exceeding 90,000, all ranks, for the Army Reserve), Territorial Army, Cadet Forces, etc. (in addition to the sum of £2,472,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)…
1,275,000


3.
Medical Services (in addition to the sum of £2,266,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)… …
1,168,000

AIR ESTIMATES, 1946

"That a sum, not exceeding £105,500,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the

sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, for Expenditure in respect of the Air Services, namely:

£


1.
Pay, etc., of the Air Force (in addition to the sum of £103,500,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
73,000,000


2.
Quartering, Non-Technical Supplies and Transportation (in addition to the sum of £12,000,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
8,250,000


3.
Technical Supplies and Services (in addition to the sum of £9,750,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
6,850,000


4.
Works, Buildings and Lands (in addition to the sum of £17,750,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
12,500,000


5.
Medical Services (in addition to the sum of £250,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
160,000


6.
Educational Services (in addition to the sum of £400,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
320,000


7.
Reserve and Auxiliary Forces (to a number not exceeding 72,000 all ranks) (in addition to the sum of £200,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
150,000


9.
Meteorological and Miscellaneous Effective Services (in addition to the sum of £2,400,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
1,670,000


10.
Air Ministry (in addition to the sum of £1,900,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
1,330,000


11.
Half-Pay, Pensions, and other Non-Effective Services (in addition to the sum of £1,850,000 to be allocated from the Vote on Account)
1,270,000




£105,500,000"

Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[MAJOR MILNER in the Chair]

Resolved:
That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945, the sum of £10 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Mr. Dalton.]

Resolved:
That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1947, the sum of £1,829,054,990 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."— [Mr. Dalton.]

Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL

Order read for Consideration of Lords Amendments.

9.35 p.m.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I beg to move, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered."

Mr. Osbert Peake: I have only one or two observations to make on the Motion now before the House. The first is that supporters of the Government must be duly grateful that there is still a second Chamber which can produce such useful Amendments as those upon the Order Paper. The second observation I would make is that my only possible reason for opposing this Motion would be that the Lords Amendments do not contain certain matters which we were promised by Government spokesmen that they would contain.
Speaking on nth February last, the Lord Privy Seal said:
What I can say is that, so far as the Industrial Injuries Bill is concerned, any Amendments which are necessary"—
he was speaking of any Amendments that were necessary to implement the recommendations of the Monckton Committee on alternative remedies—
will be introduced in another place, and, if the House agrees to dissent, it can do so." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, Monday, nth February, 1946; Vol. 419, c. 95.]

This question of the Monckton Committee's Report is, of course, fundamental to the carrying into effect of the Industrial Injuries Bill. It is recognised that the question of alternative remedies must be dealt with before the appointed day, and we were given to understand by Government spokesmen that the Amendments necessary to implement the recommendations of the Monckton Committee would be introduced into this Bill in another place. I ventured to take the view that the matter was one of such importance that the House of Commons ought to be given the first opportunity of dealing with it, and that such an important matter should not be raised in another place. I am glad to see that the Government have accepted my suggestion upon this point.
Without in any way trespassing on the merits of the Report of the Monckton Committee, I would only say that it obviously raises questions of immense difficulties and of immense importance, such as are likely to give rise to very serious controversy in this House. Therefore, I congratulate the Government on not carrying out their undertaking that the necessary Amendments would be introduced into the Industrial Injuries Bill in another place.

Lords Amendments considered accordingly.

TITLE:

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 2, leave out "1943" and insert "1945."

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is necessary because among the Acts of Parliament which we have to repeal is the Pneumoconiosis Act, 1945, which was passed when this Bill was under consideration. This is purely a drafting Amendment.

CLAUSE 7.—(Right to and description of benefit.)

Lords Amendment: In page 5, line 15, leave out "loss of personableness," and insert "disfigurement."

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This word "personableness" gave rise to a good deal of discussion during the earlier stages of this Bill, and in another place the Lord Chancellor said that he thought the word "disfigurement" was much better. It is a usual word, and the other is an unusual word. I can give a complete assurance that the new word is not in any way narrower. The Lord Chancellor, with his wide experience and great legal knowledge, thought that the expression "disfigurement" was better all round, and we, therefore, wish to incorporate it in the Bill.

Mr. Peake: The word proposed in another place is certainly a great improvement upon the phrase originally used in the Bill. The original phrase was "loss of personableness" and I think that we can all agree that those words were a grave disfigurement of the Bill.

Mr. Griffiths: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my saying that he was a party to putting it in the Bill first of all.

CLAUSE 18.—(Increase of injury benefits and disablement pension in respect of adult dependants.)

Lords Amendment: In page 13, line 25, leave out paragraph (a).

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Lindgren): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment brings the Industrial Injuries Bill into line with the National Insurance Bill. To avoid confusion, it was thought that both Bills should be in identical terms so that there would be no argument on one as to whether something different was intended in the other.

Question put, and agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

CLAUSE 29.—(Adjustments for successive accidents.)

Lords Amendment: In page 21, line 25, leave out from "benefit" to end of line 26,and insert "such as is mentioned in the following subsection".

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment corrects two errors in drafting. First, it allows a juvenile who meets with a second accident to continue to receive a special hardship allowance in addition to the 100 per cent. pension, which is 33s. 9d. or 22s. 6d. as the case may be. Secondly, it makes clear that a pensioner with two pensions, if he enters hospital, will get a pension at the 100 per cent. rate but no higher.

Mr. Peake: This Amendment is clearly good, and this is a clear case of where in another place a defect has been found in the Bill as it left this House.

Question put, and agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

CLAUSE 32.—(Disqualifications, forfeitures and suspensions.)

Lords Amendment: In page 23, line 40, leave out Subsection (1) and insert:
(1)Except where regulations otherwise provide a person shall be disqualified for receiving any benefit, and an increase of benefit shall not be payable in respect of any person as the beneficiary's wife or husband, for any period during which that person—

(a) is absent from Great Britain; or
(b) is undergoing penal servitude, imprisonment or detention in legal custody;

and regulations may provide for the suspension of payment to or in respect of any person during any such period as aforesaid of benefit which is excepted from the operation of the foregoing provisions of this Subsection or which is payable otherwise than in respect of that period

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
Here again, the effect of this Amendment is to bring the Industrial Injuries Bill into line with the National Insurance Bill.

945 p.m.

Mr. Peake: This matter is not quite so simple as the right hon. Gentleman has made out. Under the Bill as it originally stood, dependants of a beneficiary could be disqualified by regulations from the receipt of allowances where the wife or husband was permanently or temporarily resident outside Great Britain. There had to be residence outside Great Britain before disqualification arose. The Amendment from another place provides a rather more severe test for dependent relatives. In fact, it provides that there may be disqualification for the dependent's allowance for any period during which the husband or wife is absent from Great


Britain; that is to say, if the husband or wife of the beneficiary under this Bill, somebody who has met with an industrial accident, goes abroad for a fortnight to spend a holiday at Ostend, or somewhere else on the Continent, the dependent's allowance cannot be drawn during that period. I think myself that is a sensible provision. However, the House should appreciate that it goes very much farther than the original provision in the Bill, where the test of residence was applied.
It is clear, under the Amendment, that if the husband or wife of a beneficiary goes overseas, even on a temporary visit, no dependant's allowance will be drawn. What is the position as regards other adult dependants? It would clearly be wrong to disqualify a husband or wife, in these circumstances, while permitting an uncle, an aunt, a niece or a nephew to continue to draw the dependant's allowance. This Amendment is limited to the case of the husband or wife. I would like an assurance from the Minister, that so far as other adult dependants are concerned a similar test will be applied. I think it can be applied by means of regulations to be made under Clause 18 (1, c). Would the Minister give me an assurance to that effect?

Mr. J. Griffiths: Yes, I will do so at once. We can do it under Clause 18. Clearly we ought to apply the same test to both.

Question put, and agreed to. [Special Entry. ]

CLAUSE 32.—(Disqualifications, forfeitures and suspensions.)

Lords Amendment: In page 24, line 30, at end, insert:
Provided that regulations tinder this Subsection providing for the forfeiture of benefit for any of the following matters, that is to say—

(i) for failure to comply with the requirements of Subsection (4) of the said Section twenty-five;
(ii) for failure to comply with the requirements of regulations under that Section relating to medical examination or treatment;
(iii) for obstruction of or misconduct in connection with medical examination or treatment;

shall not be made so as to disentitle a claimant or beneficiary to benefit for a period exceeding six weeks on any forfeiture."

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
During the Report stage of the Bill, certain hon. and right hon. Gentlemen quite rightly called attention to the fact that under these disqualifications, whilst power was given by the regulations, there was no maximum penalty. It was felt that the maximum penalty should be stated. Arrangements were made, and this Amendment does fix the maximum penalty at six weeks' disqualification.

Mr. Peake: This Amendment also is welcome to myself and my hon. Friends. In fact, it limits the time for which benefit may be forfeited for certain specific offences. The offences arc set out in the Amendment. They are, first, for failure to comply with the requirements of Clause 25, which is the Clause imposing upon a claimant on the fund the duty of doing everything in his power to promote his own recovery. Secondly, there is forfeiture for failure to comply with the requirements of regulations relating to medical examination or treatment. Thirdly, there is forfeiture for obstruction of, or misconduct in connection with, medical examination or treatment. In all those cases the Minister is, wisely I think, limiting the duration of forfeiture to the period of six weeks. However, I would draw the attention of the Minister to the effect of this Amendment. If he will look at Clause 32, Subsection (2) of which contains this power of forfeiture, after dealing with the power of forfeiture, the Clause goes on to provide that:
Regulations may provide … for suspending proceedings on the claim or payment of benefit … in the case of any such failure, obstruction or misconduct.
It, therefore, appears that while forfeiture of benefit is limited to a period of six weeks, there may be an absolutely indefinite suspension of the payment of benefit in these cases, and it seems to me that the suspension of payment is just as harsh a penalty upon the offending person as is forfeiture, because it means that there can in fact be suspension without any time limit. Therefore, although the Minister's Amendment goes a long way towards mitigating the harshness of the forfeiture Clause, it would appear that there remains a power of absolutely indefinite suspension. In that respect I must admit that the Minister's Amendment does not go as far as I and my hon. Friends would have wished.

Mr. Charles Williams: I would like to say a few words in support of my right hon. Friend. I welcome the human side of this Amendment, in that it puts a strict time limit on the forfeiture of benefit. That is the kind of Amendment we expect from another place. I join with my right hon. Friend in saying that I am very concerned about the suspension of benefit. I do not know whether it is too late to deal with it, and I do not think the Minister himself would exercise this power badly, indeed, it may be necessary to have this power occasionally. But I say frankly, as an ordinary Conservative Member representing vast quantities of working men, that I feel I must raise my voice in protest against this suspension provision, which I very much dislike.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): I hope the right hon. Gentleman will pay attention, even at this stage, to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake). The concession contained in the Amendment made in another place is, as the right hon. Gentleman will remember, a concession which was urged upon him in the Standing Committee. It goes half way, but it still leaves open the question of the indefinite suspension of payment, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out. Now that the case made by a considerable number of Members of the Opposition in the Standing Committee has been recognised by the right hon. Gentleman so far as one category is concerned, I hope he will not overlook the other half of the case. The matter is a very substantial one, and may affect the interests of a great many injured men. Even at this stage of the Bill, I would, with very great respect, say to the right hon. Gentleman that the matter is so important that his Department ought to look into it.

Mr. Lindgren: May I draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and of the hon. Member, to the distinct difference between suspension and disqualification? Disqualification means that benefit is not payable. The Clause does allow for suspension of benefit—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Indefinitely.

Mr. Lindgren: No, not indefinitely, only until such time as the questions required to be answered are answered. And quite frankly, this House ought not to

agree to the payment of benefit unless there were satisfactory proof, or satisfactory answers to the questions that were required to be answered. As soon as those matters are satisfactorily cleared up, although the benefit has been suspended, it is paid as from the date on which the applicant became entitled to it. So, if we have an argument with a man and information is required on certain matters, the benefit is suspended until he satisfactorily replies to those inquiries. As soon as a satisfactory reply has been given, the benefit is paid as from the date on which he became entitled to it. Disqualification is a penalty for an offence. Suspension is not an offence: it means delayed payment. That is what is to be covered by Regulation.

Mr. Peake: But I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us an assurance that suspension will never be indefinite in character?

Mr. Lindgren: Most certainly, Sir.

CLAUSE 37.—(Appeal from, and review of, Minister's decisions.)

Lords Amendment: In page 29, line 12, at end, insert:
and on any such reference or appeal the court may order the Minister to pay the costs of any other person, whether or not the decision is in his favour and whether or not the Minister appears on the reference or appeal.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is accepted for the reason that, if cases go to the court—and it may be the case that there will be test cases—it will be within the power of the court to award costs against the Minister. I am sure the House will accept it.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I should like to ask the Minister whether this would also apply to cases which are not test cases.

Mr. Griffiths: It will be for the court to determine whether the award can be made.

Question put, and agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

CLAUSE 42.—(Appointment of Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners.)

Lords Amendment: In page 31, line 35, at end, insert:
The Commissioner and deputy Commissioners shall be barristers or advocates of not less than ten years standing.

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This complies with what was always the intention of my right hon. Friend, as he said both in Committee and on Report stage. It was felt in another place that the matter ought to be included within the Bill, and it is recommended that these words be inserted.

Question put, and agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

CLAUSE 51.—(Procedure, evidence, etc.)

Lords Amendment: In page 37, line 17, at end, insert:
and it is hereby declared that the power to prescribe procedure includes power to make provision as to the representation of one person, at any hearing of a case, by another person whether having professional qualifications or not.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
I indicated to the Committee, and to the House on Report stage, that it was my intention to permit this under regulation. In another place, the view was expressed that we ought to make a declaration to that effect, and I have no objection to that.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I think the Minister will recollect that there was considerable discussion, on the earlier stages of the Bill, as to the right of representation of persons affected. This Amendment docs seem to me to go some way in the right direction, but I do think we ought to have a little more explanation from the Minister as to the way in which he intends to operate this power to make regulations. I take the view that any person should be entitled to be represented by any other person, whether qualified or not, in a matter of this sort, and that, really, it is not enabling people to put their cases before the tribunal correctly or fully, to say that they shall be limited in the choice of their advocates. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman: is it intended to give power of full representation

at all hearings before the tribunal, or is it intended by regulation to limit the right of representation to particular cases? If it is to be limited to particular cases, how is the discretion to give the right of representation to be exercised? Is it to be the case that the chairman shall have the right, in certain circumstances, of saying, "In this particular case, because there appears now to be a point of law involved, we will allow you representation by a solicitor or barrister"? Or is it the case that applications can be made in advance for that purpose?
I should like to have an answer to these questions. If it be the case that a discretion is to be vested in the chairman, it appears to me that it will be very hard for him to exercise that discretion in practice, because very often important points of law do not emerge unless the evidence is correctly presented on questions of fact. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that difficulty, and that he will say it is his intention to give the widest possible powers of representation to people who desire to be represented.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Griffiths: We had a long discussion about this on a previous occasion. My desire is to be perfectly fair, but at the same time I have to be careful that I do not destroy the whole basis of the scheme by converting these tribunals into a form of county court. I speak with many years' experience and I have been before tribunals and county courts. I admit there are cases where representation may be eminently desirable in the interests of the applicant and of the chairman, and I propose to provide for that by Regulation. Every worker who has come before a tribunal or a court cannot afford the money for legal representation. I want to preserve an atmosphere in which we can best handle these cases, and for that reason the Bill has been drawn up in this form.

CLAUSE 52.—(Interim payments, arrears and repayments.)

Lords Amendment: In page 37, line 37, leave out "death."

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This is a drafting Amendment. It enables the benefits as a whole to be considered.

Lords Amendment: In page 37, line 46, at end insert:
(7) Where a person has received sums on account of an allowance under the Family Allowances Act, 1945, to which by virtue of this Act he was not entitled by reason of his being entitled to death benefit under section twenty-one thereof subsequently awarded (whether in respect of the same or a different child), those sums shall be treated as paid on account of the death benefit and the amount thereof shall be repaid to the Treasury out of the Industrial Injuries Fund.

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This again brings the Bill into line with the National Insurance Bill. I can assure the House that it in no way deprives anyone of any benefit. It is an enabling Clause. Where it is found that a family allowance has been paid for a child and that child was entitled to a higher benefit by way of orphan's benefit, that amount of the family allowance can be offset.

Mr. Peake: I confess that I am not clear about this Amendment from the explanation given by the Parliamentary Secretary. As I understand it, this applies to the case of a child who has died, whose parents have continued after the child's death to receive a family allowance. It provides that in such a case, when death benefit comes to be paid in respect of the child, the previously paid family allowance shall be deducted from the benefit and repaid to the Treasury. That is how I understand the matter. I may have got it wrong. I must confess that the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation of it did not clarify the matter so far as I was concerned. Perhaps we can have a little further explanation.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The position will be that we shall continue to pay family allowances, and later, on, admit a higher claim under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill. Where the higher claim overlaps with the family allowances, we shall make an adjustment between the two.

Lords Amendment: In page,40, line 5, at end, insert:

NEW CLAUSE.—(Superannuation allowance for Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners.)

"(1) The Minister may from time to time recommend to the Treasury that there shall be paid to the Commissioner or any deputy Commissioner an annual sum by way of superannuation allowance calculated in accordance with the Fifth Schedule to this Act if either—

(a) he is at the time of his retirement over the age of seventy-two or, where he retires after fifteen years' service, the age of sixty-five; or
(b) the Minister is satisfied by means of a medical certificate that at the time of his retirement he is, by reason of infirmity of mind or body, incapable of discharging the duties of his office and that the incapacity is likely to be permanent.

(2) For the purposes of the foregoing Subsection and the said Schedule—

(a) service as Commissioner or deputy Commissioner which is not remunerated by means of a salary shall be disregarded;
(b) service as deputy Commissioner shall, subject to the foregoing paragraph, count (in the case of a person retiring as Commissioner) as service as Commissioner;
(c) the Treasury may by regulations provide for counting as service as Commissioner or as deputy Commissioner pensionable service in any other capacity under the Crown.

(3) The decision of the Treasury shall be final on any question arising as to—

(a) the amount of any superannuation allowance under this section; or
(b) the reckoning of any service for the purpose of calculating such an allowance.

(4) Where the rate of a Commissioner or deputy Commissioner's superannuation allowance under this Section is increased by virtue of regulations made under paragraph (c) of Subsection (2) thereof in respect of service in some other capacity, the allowance shall be paid and borne partly in the manner provided by Subsections (1) and (2) of the Section of this Act relating to the expenses of Government Departments and partly in the manner in which a pension payable wholly in respect of service in that other capacity would have been paid and borne, in such proportions as may be determined by the Treasury regard being had to the relative length of service and rate of remuneration in each capacity.

(5) In this Section the expression 'pension ' includes any superannuation or other retiring allowance or gratuity and the expression ' pensionable ' shall be construed accordingly."

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This brings the provisions in respect of the Commissioners in this Bill into line


with those of the National Insurance Bill, which have been agreed.

CLAUSE 61 (Inspectors.)

Lords Amendment: In page 46, line 26, leave out from "examined" to end of line 28.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[Mr. Griffiths.]

Mr. Manningham-Buller: This Amendment deals with a matter which was raised at considerable length on the Committee and Report stages with regard to the powers of inspectors to compel a person to sign a declaration of the truth of the matter in respect of which he is so examined. I think that the power of enforcing a signature to a document prepared by someone else is a novel one to British law, and I am glad that, at this stage, the right hon. Gentleman has accepted the Lords Amendment that it should be deleted.

Lords Amendment: In page 47, line 1, leave out "fails" and insert "refuses or neglects".

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This brings the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill into line with the National Insurance Bill.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I think that we should have a word of explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Law Officers, as to the precise meaning of:
neglects to answer any question.
One can understand the refusal to answer a question. If that refusal, in the circumstances, constitutes a criminal offence a person is liable to a fine not exceeding £10 for a first offence and not exceeding £50 in the case of a second or subsequent offence. Presumably, if one refuses to answer two questions in the course of this examination one can become liable to a penalty of £60. What is meant by "neglecting to answer a question"? Supposing a person is asked a question—and remember this is a criminal offence—and says, "I should like to have notice of that question," will

that person be guilty of a criminal offence? Again, should he say, "I should like to see that question written down so that I can consider it," would that be a criminal offence? I think we should have an answer to that.

Mr. J. Griffiths: There was considerable discussion and complaint about the original words and I was pressed by hon. Members on more than one side of the Committee, and particularly hon. and learned Members, to make the position more clear. It was said that a man might fail to answer a question because there was no answer. I was asked to do something positive so I have put in these words "refuses or neglects," and I thought by so doing I would meet hon. and learned Members in this matter. I hope that they will accept the words.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: From what the right hon. Gentleman says it is not very clear to me why "refuses" is not sufficient for his purpose. As it stood, if a man refused to answer a question I think it was perfectly clear and anyone can see if he refused he was criminally liable. Why not stop there?

Mr. Griffiths: I can answer that at once. My legal advisers stated that we should not stop there.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Did they give any reason?

CLAUSE 67.—(General provisions as to prosecutions under Act.)

Lords Amendment: In page 50, line 41, leave out Subsection (5) and insert:
(5) In any proceedings for an offence under this Act, the wife or husband of the accused shall be competent to give evidence, whether for or against the accused:
Provided that the wife or husband shall not be compellable either to give evidence or, in giving evidence, to disclose any communication made to her or him during the marriage by the accused.

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
There was considerable discussion particularly amongst the legal Members in Committee and in the House, on the question whether or not a wife was a competent or a compellable witness. Subsequently this form of wording was arrived at which was inserted in the


National Insurance Bill, and these words are now repeated in the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am glad that this Amendment has been moved. This was raised during the Committee stage by the Opposition, and was the subject of considerable argument at that time. If I may say so, it met with considerable resistance from the Government on those occasions, but we persisted in the matter. I am very glad that at the last possible moment the Government are agreeing to this Amendment from another place which states the law quite clearly, and does not give rise to the possible confusion which the subsection of the Clause did in its original form.

CLAUSE 68.—(Recovery of contributions on prosecutions under Act.)

Lords Amendment: In page 51, line 6, after "convicted", insert:
of an offence under paragraph (b) of Subsection (1) of Section sixty-six of this Act or.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment relates to used stamps and is consequential to an Amendment to Clause 66 (1) made on the Report stage in the House of Commons.

CLAUSE 82.—(Supplementary schemes.)

Lords Amendment: In page 59, line 46, at end, insert:
(6) Section thirty-three of the Finance Act, 1921 (which exempts from Income Tax income receivable for the purposes of a supplementary scheme in connection with unemployment insurance by the body charged with the administration of the scheme) shall apply in relation to a supplementary scheme under this Section as it applies in relation to a supplementary scheme under any other enactment.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is to bring the Bill into line with the National Insurance Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

CLAUSE 87.—(Interpretation.)

Lords Amendment: In page 64, line 6, at end, insert:

'earnings' where used in relation to a person includes any remuneration or profit derived from a gainful occupation.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is required because a definition of "earnings" is needed in connection with Clause 18 (3).

CLAUSE 89.—(Application to Scotland.)

Lords Amendment: In page 67, line 40, at end, insert:
and as if Subsection (5) thereof were omitted.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This Amendment is needed in order to make the Clause fit into the general framework of Scottish law.

FOURTH SCHEDULE.—(Provisions limiting benefit payable in respect of any death.)

Lords Amendment: In page 76, line 21, at end, insert new Schedule:

(Scale of Superannuation Allowances of Commissioner and deputy Commissioners.)

When the number of completed years of service is as specified in the first column of the following table, the annual allowance shall not exceed the fraction of the last annual salary respectively specified in the second column of that table: —

Years of service.

Fraction of salary.


less than 5
…
Six-thirtieths.


5
…
Ten-thirtieths.


6
…
Eleven-thirtieths.


7
…
Twelve-thirtieths.


8
…
Thirteen-thirtieths.


9
…
Fourteen-thirtieths.


10
…
Fifteen-thirtieths.


11
…
Sixteen-thirtieths.


12
…
Seventeen-thirtieths.


13
…
Eighteen-thirtieths.


14
…
Nineteen-thirtieths.


15 or more
…
Twenty-thirtieths.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
This is exactly the same provision as has been made in the National Insurance Bill.

Question put, and agreed to. [Special Entry.]

EIGHTH SCHEDULE.—(Enactments repealed.)

Lords Amendment: In page 79, line 57, at end, insert:

"9 and 10; Geo. 6. c. 28.
The Assurance Companies Act, 1946.
Paragraph (b) of Subsection (1) and paragraph (b) of Subsection (2) of Section five; para-graph (b) of sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 3 of Part III of the Second Schedule."

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Mr. Peake: Before we part with this Amendment, which is the last of the many Lords Amendments which have been carried through in a very short time, may I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having got through so many Amendments—which are so obnoxious to so many of his supporters—at such a late hour, and so very late in the Session?

Mr. Griffiths: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. This Bill has seen many changes since it was first introduced, and I am glad to observe that it has been immensely improved since I first received it from the right hon. Gentleman himself.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to, several with Special Entries.

DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (EXTENSION) BILL Lords

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

Bill recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House in respect of the Amendments in Schedule 1, page 3, line 43 and Schedule 2, page 6, line 2, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Philip Noel-Baker.—[Mr. Philip Noel-Baker.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Mr. HUBERT BEAUMONT in the Chair]

FIRST SCHEDULE.—(Amendments of Principal Act.)

10.20 p.m.

The Minister of State (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker): I beg to move, in page 3, line 43, at the end, to insert:
In paragraph 3 of Part II the words ' and rates ' shall be omitted.
In Committee, I said that I had some difficulty about the proposal which was made by Members opposite, that these words should be omitted. In fact, the 1944 Act, which, by this Bill, we are amending, made it possible for the Government, by order, to exempt organisations, representatives, officials and so on, from rates, but I am advised that, under Section 19 of the Convention, it is not absolutely essential to include the words "and rates" in the Bill, as it refers to the higher officials of international organisation. Therefore, I have moved to omit those words so that we may perhaps reach more general agreement upon the Bill.

Mr. Harold Roberts: My remarks will apply not only to this Amendment, but to several other Amendments which are to be moved. One would have assumed that the staff work of the Minister would have been good enough to ensure that, in moving these Amendments, he would get the support of his nominal supporters. This Amendment and other Amendments were distinctly foreshadowed by hon. Members on this side in earlier Debates on the Bill. Our forethought caused one of the supporters of the right hon. Gentleman, in a burst of piety, to thank the Almighty that hon. Members on this side were not in power, because we gave lip-service to valuable Bills of this sort and torpedoed them afterwards. Another one of the right hon. Gentleman's supporters, a merry wag, referred to these Amendments as being red herrings decorated with red flags. I do not know whether or not those hon. Gentlemen will cause embarrassment to the Minister or regard him as being subject to the condemnation which they were so eager to pronounce.
The truth is that the Minister brought forward this Bill very lightheartedly, without receiving due advice from the Law Officers. When difficulties were pointed out, those who pointed them out were


immediately assailed as being criminals who wanted to injure or sabotage the Bill. We now have the humiliating spectacle of the Government having to ask for sanction for the very Amendments which were formerly said to be of a wrecking character. I am reminded of a remark made in the House a few months ago by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who said of the Government Front Bench that he admired their intelligence, but doubted their capacity. That remark can be extended from Ministers down to their supporters. It is not very easy to dispel complacency, but I hope that this present experience may do a little in that direction.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): As the right hon. Gentleman will recollect, an Amendment in precisely similar terms to those which he is now recommending to the Committee, stood on the Order Paper on the last occasion upon which we discussed this Measure in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Challen) and myself. I naturally welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is now moving our Amendment, but perhaps I might be allowed to say that had he taken the trouble, with the aid of his advisers, to consider this point in advance, he could have saved the time of the House and the Committee by accepting it on that occasion. Although that time, having been wasted, cannot be recalled, it is reassuring to discover from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is himself moving this Amendment that he recognises that great minds now think alike.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I join in the expression of thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for having seen the wisdom of making this alteration even at this last stage and at the expense of recommitting the Bill. In the 1944 Act it is, I think, clearly implied that some individuals could be granted an exemption from rates; in various textbooks it it also clearly stated that individuals who have the privileges of an envoy of a foreign Power can be exempt from rates. Therefore the passages from those textbooks, the passage in the Act and the passage in this Bill justified, in my view, the inquiry as to the extent to which this privilege went. The right hon. Gentleman had this point raised at an earlier

stage of our discussions but it was only after considerable debate and discussion that he revealed that in fact the individual did not get freedom from rates in respect of his own premises. It followed, once the right hon. Gentleman made that admission, that these words in the Bill were either completely meaningless or entirely misleading, and probably both. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman, even at this late stage, has taken steps to remove from the Bill something which is quite inaccurate, according to the interpretation that he has sought to give of the law of this land.

Mr. Charles Williams: It needs few words on my part to congratulate the Government and the right hon. Gentleman on the wisdom of this Amendment. There is a considerable amount of feeling in the Committee—especially on the other side if they have the courage to emphasise it—on the privileges which are being given, but if we are going to extend those privileges as proposed, it is only right that we should examine rates, one of the things which press most heavily on a large section of the public. I say quite frankly that it would cause a quite unnecessary dislike of this very worthy body which we are setting up if there was any unnecessary extension of privilege in this respect. It is seldom that the right hon. Gentleman has shown much wisdom in the course of these Debates. Therefore it must be a real pleasure, both to his supporters and to the Opposition, that an Amendment of this kind, which was, I understand, pressed by the Opposition earlier, should now be accepted by the Government. We congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his wisdom, or. this occasion at any rate, and I should like to say how glad I am that we have been enabled to make this improvement in the Bill. It will take away some of the possible privileges but, it will make the Bill less disliked by the ordinary people of this country.

Mr. Noel-Baker: In view of the orgy of congratulation which is going on, I think it is up to me to say a word. I am of course deeply indebted to the hon. Member for Handsworth (Mr. Roberts) for the manner in which he received my Amendment. I do not think that my side of the Committee will have forgotten that in the early stages and the Second Reading the Opposition thought that they were


going to have a general chauvinistic assault on this Bill and on international organisations. After a short time they found it was not a paying proposition and they gave it up. In the course of the Committee stage a better temper, as I think, developed, and a great many Amendments put forward from the other side, some of them of very considerable substance, were withdrawn. On that, I gave a pledge that on my side I would put forward any Amendments I thought I could make to meet them. This is a very small Amendment, and if I am asked to examine it, I do not think that it will make any practical difference at all. I thought it wise to make these Amendments in this form in an effort to meet hon. Members opposite, and I had hoped they would accept them in the spirit in which they are offered.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I regret that the right hon. Gentleman is being singularly ungracious and provocative in this matter. We on this side of the Committee have been congratulating him on moving such a reasonable Amendment, and it really does not lie in his mouth, so it seems to me, to minimise the effect of this Amendment, because many people on reading this Bill as it originally stood would have thought, and rightly thought, that the words "exemption from rates" meant something. They do not all read the right hon. Gentleman's speeches, but it was quite clear, as he has said in the course of previous Debates, that these words were meaningless. I am glad he is putting the matter right and I thank him for doing so, but I repeat that I think he is being singularly ungracious and provocative in the observations he has made.

Mr. C. Williams: I am sure hon. Members opposite will not mind hearing me again. I wish to remark that when the right hon. Gentleman used the word "chauvinistic" he did go out of his way to try to raise party politics on this matter. I have noticed over and over again that when we on this side are improving a Bill which is of vital importance, attempts are made deliberately by hon. Members opposite to try to produce worse feelings.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

SECOND SCHEDULE.—(S. 1 (2) of and the Schedule to the Principal Act as amended by this Act.)

Amendment made: In page 6, line 2, leave out "and rates."—[Mr. Philip Noel-Baker.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended (in Committee and on recommittal), considered.

CLAUSE 1.—(General amendments.)

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I beg to move, in page 2, line 19, after "affect", insert "the validity or".
This Amendment is intended to make it doubly certain that this Clause cannot change the present operation of any existing Order in Council. We propose it, not because any of us on this side of the House or my legal advisers have any doubt about the interpretation of the existing words of the Bill, but because hon. Members opposite did have doubts, and we hope that the Amendment will alleviate those doubts.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I recognise the attempt the right hon. Gentleman has made to meet the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Northwich (Mr. John Foster). I hope he will not think I am being ungracious when I say I do not think this Amendment really meets that point at all. I want, quite shortly, to address a serious argument to him on that subject. The question at issue has never been the validity of the Orders in Council under Section 1 of the principal Act. It has always been agreed that these Orders in Council are not, by this Bill, annulled. The point that we on this side of the House make is this. By this Bill, Part II is taken out of the 1944 Act and a new Part II is inserted. Thus, when there is an Order, like the European Coal Organisation Order, made under the 1944 Act, it is found that certain people shall have the privileges specified in Part II of the Act. If that Order in Council remains, one obviously looks to see what Part II of the Act is. From now on a different Part II from the Part II that was in operation when that Order was made will be found. So, without the validity of the Order in Council being in the least degree affected, as I see it, its operation must, as a matter of law, be extended by the Amendments made by


this Bill to Part II of the 1944 Act. I hope I have made myself clear, because I am trying to put the point as shortly as I can.
The right hon. Gentleman says he has been advised by his legal advisers. I must say, I would like to hear either the learned Attorney-General or the learned Solicitor-General on this point, and I think the House is entitled to hear their views upon it. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman—because I do not want to indulge in a controversy with him, however much he may wish to trail his coat—this possible Amendment, which I think will meet the point he has tried to meet—but which I think he has failed to do—and do no harm at all. Suppose in front of "affect" the words "extend or" were inserted. It would then read:
The foregoing Subsection shall not extend or affect the operation of any Order, in Council.
I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me when I say that what he is trying to do, and what we want to try to do, is to keep the Orders in Council under the 1944 Act having precisely the same operation as they now have; that is to say, they shall not be affected in any way by this Measure. As I see it, it is very arguable indeed, putting it at its lowest, that the Orders under the 1944 Act are automatically extended, so far as Part II is concerned, by the provisions of this Measure. If the words "extend or" are inserted he will achieve his object, and he will meet the wishes of hon. Members on this side of the House. I would ask him to give serious consideration to that point. We do not want to take up any time on what is really a point of drafting as to how the purpose is achieved. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has met us so far. I welcomed his desire to do so, and I think the words I have suggested to him really achieve our common purpose.

Lient.-Commander Joynson - Hicks: I desire to reinforce the argument put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). I really cannot see what advantage the introduction of the words contained in the proposed Amendment can possibly have. In default of any advice from either of the Law Officers I think the House is rather at a disadvantage. There is no way, that I

can understand, whereby "The foregoing subsection", that is Subsection (1), can possibly affect the validity of an Order in Council. That is the sole point which I understand this Amendment is designed to overcome. I do not think there has ever been any question of the validity of the Order in Council itself being affected by this Subsection; the whole question was whether or not the Subsection might extend or vary the Order in Council, not whether it would affect its validity. I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman that the point should be taken into consideration, because the introduction of the words may throw doubt upon the whole question.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Our intention originally in using the word "operation" was that it should cover both the validity of the Order and the effect of the Order, so that what actually happened under the Order should not be changed. As we understood the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) and other hon. Members opposite, their point was that the word "operation" only meant "validity"; that of course the Order would go on, but that its effect would be changed. We thought, by inserting the word "validity" we would make it plain that "operation" must mean something else; that "operation" must mean the effect which the Order had, and for that reason—although we believed it to be plain in our original draft and that the courts would so -;construe it we were quite ready to put in the words "validity or operation," meaning the word "operation" to convey the intention and effect. The hon. and learned Member now proposes another change, which perhaps will make it still clearer—"extend or affect." I am quite ready to accept it, if he thinks it an advantage.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Surely the meaning of these Orders must be affected owing to the Amendment to the Schedule? Surely they must have a totally different meaning after that?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is the point we have been discussing.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: With the leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for saying that he will accept this Amendment I have suggested. I think it makes this rather complicated point absolutely


clear, and removes all uncertainty from this particular provision.

Mr. Speaker: There is a little difficulty about procedure here. I think this Amendment has to be withdrawn and a new one moved, because I think the words will be in the wrong place after "affect." I think they should come before "affect." Therefore this Amendment must be withdrawn and a new Amendment moved.

Mr. Noel-Baker: May I, with the leave of the House, withdraw the existing Amendment and, if that is agreed to, propose a new Amendment which would be: After the word "not," in line 19, to insert "extend or," and after the word "the" to insert "validity or."

Mr. Speaker: I think the whole Amendment should be withdrawn and then a new Amendment should be moved, and that would be: After the word "not" to insert "extends or affects the validity or." I think that is the correct way of doing it.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: It should be "extend."

Mr. Speaker: Can it be written out?

Mr. Nicholson: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, I submit that we must leave out all the words in that line after the word "not"; that is, leave out "affect the operation."

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: In page 2, line 19, after "not," insert "extend or affect the validity or."—[Mr. Philip Noel-Baker.]

FIRST SCHEDULE.—(Amendments of Principal Act.)

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 3, line 43, at the end, to insert:
In Part II the words 'The like inviolability of residence as is accorded to such an envoy,' shall be omitted.
This Amendment has been put down in the hope of getting an assurance from the right hon Gentleman. Or the last occasion we were discussing this Measure, he explained the effect of the words,
The like inviolability of residence as is accorded to such an envoy
as meaning that the police or other state authorities shall not enter the envoy's residence except with the envoy's permission. So far as the particular people

who are recommended in the Convention as being persons upon whom the full privileges of a diplomatic envoy should be conferred, are concerned, we have no objection to their securing inviolability of residence, with this effect. But I think we should get an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that no people other than those covered by the specific recommendation in the Convention shall get the full privileges of a diplomatic envoy, shall be given freedom from having their premises searched by the police in the execution of a search warrant granted by a magistrate. I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to give an assurance of that sort—at least I hope so. Therefore, I do not propose to take up time by further argument.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am afraid that it would not have been possible for me to have accepted the Amendment if it had been pressed. It would have been inconsistent with Article 19 of the Convention, and therefore, the Bill would not have carried out the Convention. But as this is being made the occasion to ask me to give the assurance for which the hon. and learned Member has asked, I give him the assurance that we shall never try to apply this provision to people other than those to whom the Convention applies with the understanding that Article 19—relating to the Secretary-General and Assistant Secretaries-General—will be held to cover people of corresponding grades in other international organisations, which are not strictly United Nations organisations, but which we have agreed in this Bill to include. For example, it would cover the Director-General of the International Health organisation if he happened to be here—he will not be, but it would include him if he were here.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: With the leave of the House, and in view of the explanation which the right hon. Gentleman has given—as I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman is saying that this particular privilege, a valuable one, it may be, will be very limited in its operation—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I beg to move, in page 4, line 19, after "children,' to insert "under the age of twenty-one."
I explained in Committee that this would be the effect of the Bill as it stood, because by practice, immunity for children of envoys is only granted to those under twenty-one. We could not use the words "minor" or "infant," for the reason I have previously explained. This phrase will be satisfactory both to Scottish and English lawyers. Therefore, I hope it may meet the views of hon. Members opposite, and of the House.

Mr. C. Williams: I recognise with gratitude that in this Amendment the right hon. Gentleman does go some way to meet the case which was raised earlier in the proceedings, but though fixing the age at 21 may be all right from a technical and legal point of view, I doubt whether it is the right age when we are granting privileges of this kind. I put it from this point of view. A woman of 18 would qualify as a child under this provision, but she might be married, and she might, before she is 21, have two or three children. Is it proposed, in those circumstances, to go on giving this privilege? It seems to me that in the case of a married woman it is rather too wide. The same would apply to a man who might be earning his own living. When you have got to that stage, will the word "children" include grandchildren? I do not know the technical legal position. I have no doubt some of my hon. and learned Friends may be able to tell me.
I do say that, in the circumstances, this provision might have been drawn rather more narrowly, so that it would have been confined to children who were really at the educational stage, and not extend to married people and people who are earning their own living. For that reason, though I dislike and deprecate looking a gift horse in the mouth, I do say, quite frankly, that in this case—and I can see a certain amount of sympathy on the other side of the House for the point I am raising—it would have been better if we had had a lower age. I regret we could not have had some wording other than "under age" which would more nearly approximate to a child in the real meaning of the sense, and would not apply to a man earning his own living. If that had been the effect of the wording many of us would have said "Here is a handsome gift," instead of a not very good one. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman even now, will amend his own Amendment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: This is another Amendment which owes its existence to the initiative of a vigilant Opposition. On the Second Reading my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson) asked the right hon. Gentleman what the word "child" in the Bill meant, and the right hon. Gentleman gave the illuminating reply that it meant "child". The point was subsequently reinforced, and other Members told the right hon. Gentleman that the word "child" in the English statutes has a multiplicity and variety of meanings, and it was desirable to limit and define it. It is reassuring to observe that he has paid some attention to the suggestions which were made to him, and that he has accepted the suggestion and put in this definition, with the result that he has a very much better Bill. Therefore, though I appreciate what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) that the limitation might well go further, nevertheless, from the point of view of drafting, it is satisfactory that some definition is put into this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman surely is now convinced that on this point, at any rate, the raising of this point was not an attempt of an obstructive Opposition to torpedo this Bill, but the attempt of a vigilant and intelligent Opposition to improve it.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: I likewise appreciate the dawning light of recognition of wisdom on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. I venture to think he has chosen a wrong analogy here in adopting for this purpose the age limit which previously was applicable to the children of diplomatic envoys. May I put this point to him? It is by no means improbable that the child or children, either male or female, of one of these high officials who are over here, may be employed by the same organisation, but in a much humbler capacity. One of these senior officials might have a daughter of 18 and a son of 20, who might be allotted to some appointment for the sake of convenience, by some foreign country in the organisation. Thus they would acquire under this Clause the same immunities and privileges which the father enjoyed as a result of the high position which he occupied. That would immediately give rise to two difficulties. First, why should these younger people enjoy immunities and privileges while in


this country, which are denied to their colleagues who are doing exactly similar work? Secondly, why should people of sufficient responsibility who can be employed in this capacity, enjoy these additional privileges by virtue of the fact that their parents happen to be in a position high up in the organisation?
Another point I want to raise is that it is likely that the children of these high officials may be of other than European origin. It is well-known that some races and nations of the world develop much more quickly than others. It is therefore possible that we may get a person over here with a large family, all under the age of 21 and all of whom would be, as compared with people of our own race, comparatively adult. I think that this age of 21 is an arbitrary figure, chosen by the right hon. Gentleman without due regard to the possibilities and difficulties which may arise from it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look into this again.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: I would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman—who, after one momentary relapse, came to the more agreeable mood in which we have dealt with the later stages of this Bill—for moving this Amendment. I must emphasise, since he referred to the Second Reading speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller), that this very point was raised by my hon. and learned Friend but not answered— but that that is quite frequent in Second Reading Debates—or else was answered in a not very expansive way. However, after great search and the application of all the legal talent available to the Government—available though seldom present—it has now been found that there is a synonym for "minor," or if you like "infant"—which the right hon. Gentleman explained would not do. They have now found that a synonym exists in the expression "under 21 years of age." I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on this great discovery, which after all could have been put in at an earlier stage of the Bill, and also on the spirit in which he has met us. There is one further point I would like to raise. I think we are bound to accept the same assurance as that which he was good enough to give on the Amendment moved by my hon.

and learned Friend a few minutes ago, that this would apply only to those covered by section 19 of the Convention or to analagous persons; that is to say, only to the high officials mentioned in section 19 or to high officials of similar rank in other organisations. Although the Bill would legally give the right to extend it further, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us the same assurance, that it will be restricted to that same class.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If I may have the leave of the House to reply, I am obliged for what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Without feeling that I was making a humiliating spectacle of myself, I would have accepted a further Amendment from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) if it had been suitable or appropriate, but the hon. Member nearly convinced me that I had better withdraw this Amendment and go back to the original phrase. The original phrase "chidren" was, of course, to be interpreted as assimilating the privileges granted under this Bill to those granted to diplomatic envoys under international law, and it is perfectly well known that that applies only to children who are not married. His point is covered, because envoys do not have immunity for children who cease to be in their household. They have it only for children who are in their household. I am ready to do what the Opposition desire—to withdraw the Amendment and stick to the original phrase, or to insert the words "under twenty-one."

Mr. Macmillan: The assurance?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Of course. I rose to give the assurance the right hon. Gentleman asked for, and I give it now.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I beg to move, in page 4, line 22, to leave out "is," and to insert "are."
This is a drafting Amendment. Unfortunately, in the drafting we made a mistake in grammar and put the word "is" where we ought to have put the word "are."

Amendment agreed to.

SECOND SCHEDULE.—(S. 1 (2) of and the Schedule to the Principal Act as amended by this Act.)

Amendments made:

In page 6, line 24, after "children," insert "under the age of twenty-one."

In line 27, leave out "is," and insert "are."—[Mr. Noel-Baker.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

11.2 p.m.

The Minister of State (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker): In Committee I undertook that I would give a certain number of assurances, and as Amendments were withdrawn on the strength of those undertakings, I want to give them now, and give them in terms which I hope will meet hon. and right hon. Members opposite as fully as they would desire to be met. The first relates to the application by Orders in Council to other international organisations attached to, or affiliated to—whatever phrase is desired—the United Nations. This is the undertaking. His Majesty's Government will not make an Order in Council under the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Bill now under discussion, giving privileges and immunities which could not be given under the 1944 Act in favour of any existing international organisation (other than the United Nations itself), unless and until the privileges and immunities of the organisation in question have been unified in accordance with the Assembly resolution on this subject, or in favour of any new international organisation unless that international organisation has been brought into relationship with the United Nations organisation and the procedure of the Resolution of the United Nations Assembly has been applied to determine its immunities and privileges. I think some hon. Members at least on the other side have seen this, and I think they are in agreement that it is right.
The next was in respect of the International Court of Justice. With regard to the Court, which we have covered by this Bill, an Amendment having been withdrawn, I gave an undertaking that if we desired to make any considerable change in the immunities and privileges which the old Court of International Justice enjoyed, we would not use the powers under this

Bill, but instead would bring a new Bill to the House. If, on the other hand, it was desired only to confer privileges and immunities which were substantially the same, then we would make an Order in Council under this Bill, and if there was any doubt about the matter, I undertook that the Government would consult with the Opposition, through the usual channels, and would determine whether a Bill was necessary or not; if the Opposition desired a Bill, they would of course have it. Those are the two substantive declarations which I undertook to make.
I also said that I would look into the question whether we ought to insert a number of Amendments to deal with certain things which are in the Convention, but which we can deal with without legislation, because the Crown already has the power vested in it. The hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) will remember that he had a proposal to insert four subsections of one of the sections of the Convention in the Bill. After having taken advice, I thought it would not be right to make such Amendments in the Bill. The Act of 1944 proceeded on the same principle as we are now adopting. It was thought right then, and we still think that is right, that we should not legislate about things which can be done without legislation. That principle is very desirable to adhere to, because if we try to legislate for matters for which we do not need legislation, a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding as to the state of the law results. It is better, therefore, to avoid unnecessary legislation whenever that can be done. If I had started to accept what the hon. and learned Member proposed, I should have had to do a great deal more and include sections 5, sections 9 and 10, the whole of Article 12, sections 24–28— all the Convention not covered by the Bill. It would have made the Bill much more complicated, and in itself it would have been undesirable.
I undertook to see what Amendments we could bring to the Bill to meet the points raised by hon. Members opposite, and in particular whether we could adopt the method of shortness and precise definition, which was urged so often by Members opposite, and to put it all in the Bill instead of adopting the method of Orders in Council. I repeatedly explained how undesirable it was to adopt that method and pointed out that it would cause a


great deal of trouble to Parliament without any corresponding advantage. As the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) suggested, we should have to include the whole of the Convention in the Bill. In that case the Bill would have to apply to U.N.O. alone, and where-ever there was a new organisation we should have to have another Bill. Again, if we found that we had made a mistake, then instead of dealing with it by Order in Council, we should have to bring in an amending Bill.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The right hon. Gentleman is going far outside the scope of this Debate. We can only discuss what is in the Bill.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I wanted to explain to hon. Members opposite that I had endeavoured to do what I had undertaken to do, but that we had come to the conclusion that it really was not worth while. I again say that we are not going to abuse this method of Orders in Council, which Parliament itself has set up in order to enable Governments to do exactly this sort of job. Parliament had just this kind of thing in mind, and all we are doing is to adopt this method. We pledge ourselves not to go in the smallest detail beyond the terms of the Convention, and I repeat my offer, if it is of any use to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that we will consult with them informally about the first Order in Council to be made under this Bill before it ever sees the light of day.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The right hon. Gentleman has given to the House a number of assurances which we on this side regard as of very great importance. His assurance with regard to the International Court is, perhaps, the least important of all, but still it is important. I would like to say how much we welcome the undertaking that, if there is to be any great extension of privilege, the matter will be introduced in a Bill which we can, if necessary, amend, and not be dealt with by Order in Council under this Bill. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's statements as to the organisation under the 1944 Act, I must say that I did my best to follow what he read out. I wish that I had had an opportunity of considering the terms before, but as far as I can gather, they are entirely satisfac-

tory, and I feel quite confident that they will be fully adhered to.
I must express regret that the Government did not introduce a Bill which, in terms, carried out the Convention, and no more. The right hon. Gentleman has said repeatedly that that would have been a most difficult matter. I do not believe it would have been difficult to do it in accordance with the Convention. I appreciate that the difficulty, such as it was, arose from the existence on the Statute Book of the 1944 Act, a Measure passed in war time, with a temporary period of existence, with the intention behind it that it would be carefully reconsidered at the end of five years. I think it would have been quite easy for the right hon. Gentleman to have introduced a Measure carrying out the Convention, and not building upon the 1944 Act, introducing a Measure which would not have involved all the time of this House that has been spent on this Measure, and all the controversy which has passed from one side to the other. Now we have this Bill. It goes beyond the Convention, and to that extent I must say that I regard it as a bad Bill, In so far as it complies with the terms of the Convention, I regard it as a good Bill; but I think that the right hon. Gentleman would have saved a great deal of time and trouble for himself if he had attempted the task of introducing a Bill which went no further than the Convention.
We shall watch the operation of this Bill with great interest, and we welcome the assurance that we shall be consulted as to the terms of the first Order in Council which is made under it. I hope that that procedure may perhaps be followed with subsequent Orders in Council, because, surely, the Government are not going to treat every organisation in exactly the same way. Above all, I ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he is dealing with Orders in Council under the Bill, to remember that the privileges conferred under the Bill are maximum and not minimum privileges in every case. I think I am right in saying—I hope I shall not be out of Order—that up till now the Orders in Council have been apt to give the maximum privilege under Part II and not to cut down or reduce that privilege. I think that is the case, although I may be wrong; but from my reading of the Orders, they simply say that there shall be given the privileges under Part II.
I want to say a final word with regard to the waiver of privilege. We note that under section 20 the privilege will be waived in any case where the immunity would impede the course of justice, and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the United Nations. I hope that the United Nations will construe the latter phrase very narrowly and not widely. With regard to the other organisations in the Convention and the "waiver," I do express the sincere hope that they will be more ready to waive the immunity than to preserve it in the cases where any person covered by the privilege is sought to be brought within the operations of the matrimonial courts or any other courts in this country.

11.18 p.m.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: We have now reached the closing stages of this Bill, and I wish to thank once more the right hon. Gentleman for the more accommodating spirit he has shown during its later phases. I think that he also must give some credit to the Opposition. It is very unusual on a Supply day, which is an Opposition day, to take business of this kind except by agreement. In all my time in the House I do not remember a Bill of this character being taken on a Supply day, with a recommittal to Committee, then the Report stage and the Third Reading. If we have agreed to this procedure, it is quite contrary to the whole tradition of the House of Commons, and I hope it is not a precedent which the Government will try to carry on.

Mr. Robens: On a point of Order. In view of the fact that none of the comments now being made are referred to in the Bill, is the right hon. Gentleman in Order?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must confess that at the moment I was not listening, but if I find that the right hon. Gentleman is out of Order I will pull him up.

Mr. Macmillan: I do not wish in any way to upset hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I think I was in Order, on the Third Reading, in making those observations. We on this side were trying to be helpful in this matter, but I repeat that it should not be regarded as a precedent that the Supply day should be used in this way. I am very glad to see that the Solicitor-General has just joined us for the Third

Reading of this Bill, in its last stage, but I would remind the House of a remark addressed by Dr. Johnson to the Lord Chancellor of those days, that "had his intervention been timely it would have been more helpful," because there is nothing much at this stage of the Bill in which the Solicitor-General can help us.

The Deputy-Speaker: I fail to see any reference to the Solicitor-General in the Bill.

Mr. Macmillan: There is a good deal that implicates him in it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Get on with it."] If hon. Members opposite wish to delay, we are perfectly willing to stay here. I would point out to them that if they will only try to give more credit to the Opposition for their efforts to help, the more they will be able to get on. This Bill was opposed by us on the Second Reading. We did that because we did not think that the Government produced arguments to warrant our support. Since that time, I think, the second thoughts of the right hon. Gentleman, not assisted by the Leader of the House—who, incidentally, never comes to the House at all nowadays, and for that reason there is all the more credit to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill—his second thoughts have led to the acceptance of a large number of points and, have led to a great improvement in the Bill.
When Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, he allowed the right hon. Gentleman to make a statement on the Third Reading regarding assurances in connection with the Bill, which assurances the right hon. Gentleman read out to us. Those assurances are in the Bill, in the sense that they are assurances by the Government as to the method by which they propose to operate their rights under the Bill. To those assurances we attach the greatest importance. We are very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having given such thought to them. They amply carry out all the undertakings which he was good enough to give myself and my hon. Friends on the Report stage and on the Committee stage. I have refreshed my memory, and I wish to say that he has carried them out handsomely. What he has said about consulting us over the drafting of Orders in Council might, I think, be a valuable cooperation on matters of this kind,


which really must be of national importance, between the Government and the Opposition of the day, and would very much ease that rather complicated procedure. Therefore, in the light of the Amendments which he has made to the Bill, of the assurances which he has given in the course of the passage of the Bill, of the chastened spirit and more reasonable attitude which the Government have adopted in face of the criticisms which we thought it right to make, and above all in the light of the specific assurances which the right hon Gentleman read to us tonight—which I know are not legally binding, but are morally binding, and will certainly be carried out by himself and his successors—I think I can advise my hon. and right hon. Friends not to oppose the Third Reading of this Bill.

CIVIL SERVICE (MARRIAGE BAR)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Joseph Renderson.]

11.23 p.m.

Mr. John Freeman: I will detain the House for the shortest possible time in considering a matter which is of very considerable importance to many thousands of people, for whom this House has a peculiar responsibility, namely, civil servants. I wish to start by saying I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary for coming down and sitting here at this late hour to give a reply to the Debate. After all, this is vital to the welfare of a very large number of civil servants, and they too will be grateful to him for paying attention to this matter.
We are concerned with the operation of what is usually known as a "marriage bar" in the Civil Service. Because it is an extremely complicated subject with which to deal in the very limited time at our disposal on an Adjournment Motion, I will assume that the Financial Secretary and, indeed, the rest of the House are roughly aware of the background story to this question of the marriage bar. The reason it becomes particularly opportune to raise it at this moment is because during

the last Parliament the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir John Anderson), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed a sub-committee of the Civil Service National Whitley Council to examine the operation of the marriage bar, and to report on the implications of removing it. The right hon. Gentleman is a master of stonewalling tactics, and he, of course, took very good care to see that the terms of reference of that committee precluded it from expressing an opinion one way or the other as to the desirability of removing the marriage bar. He allowed it only to report on the implications. That report has recently been presented to the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it has been privately published by the National Whitley Council. It has not, I understand, been published yet as a Government paper.
The first question which I wish to address to the Financial Secretary is this: Will he undertake to see that this exceedingly important report is published by H.M. Stationery Office in order that civil servants and, indeed, the rest of the country, can consider the very considerable implications contained in it? If, as I hope, he gives a favourable reply to that question, then it is not necessary to argue the case in so much detail here tonight, because it is obvious, I think, to anybody reading that report that, while it does not in effect recommend one way or the other, the overwhelming balance of argument is in favour of abolishing the marriage bar; and I doubt whether anybody reading it with any degree of impartiality could form a different impression. Now it is perfectly true that the Treasury has certain discretionary powers in individual cases in order to allow married women to retain their positions as established civil servants, and I want to put on record a sentiment with which I do not think the Financial Secretary will disagree, that these discretionary powers are totally inadequate to deal with the problem as it now presents itself. I have never heard it suggested by anybody that those powers were adequate, and they are certainly resented to the highest degree by the great majority of women civil servants.
The reason they are inadequate is, I think, threefold. In the first place civil servants are entitled to expect some degree of uniformity of treatment, and it is quite


impossible to achieve that if the discretionary power can only be operated in respect of individual cases; because there is a degree of imponderability, both as between individuals and as between the different Departments, which makes it impossible for anybody on entering the Service to be sure whether the marriage bar will, in fact, be operated against her or not.
The second objection to the discretionary power is that it is on certain occasions, or at any rate it is very generally thought on certain occasions, to have been used as an instrument of victimisation. Those are serious words and I do not say them irresponsibly. There are one or two cases in the history of the use of these discretionary powers which at any rate are almost universally believed by the Civil Service to have been instances of victimisation, and perhaps of political victimisation. Even if that charge cannot be fully substantiated, it is extraordinarily undesirable that in a case of this kind, where the State is the employer, any such possibility should exist at all.
The third objection to the discretionary powers as they exist is that they are supposed to be operated by consultation and agreement between the Department concerned and the Treasury. There is ample evidence that in a good many cases the application for retention of a married woman in the Civil Service never gets to the Treasury at all. There is one very striking case, which I will not weary the House with quoting at length, where a medical officer of health employed in the Ministry of Health repeatedly applied for retention in the Civil Service after marriage, was refused such retention, could not marry, and as recently as last year, when the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities was asked by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dar-wen (Mr. Prescott) about this case, the reply was that in the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge, there had never been a case of a doctor being refused. That, I think, is conclusive evidence that that case at least had never been referred to the Treasury. For those reasons, the discretionary powers as they exist at the moment, even though we are aware that there has been some redrafting of them in June of last year, are not adequate to deal with the situation.
Now it is not necessary to go into the arguments of principle for or against a marriage bar, because they are set out very clearly in the report of the National Whitley Council, but I would make this general observation on the arguments. They fall into two classes. There are some arguments which are really directed against the employment of married women in any capacity at all inside or outside the Civil Service. Those, of course, have nothing to do with the Civil Service as such, and whatever else one may have to say about them, they are abundantly answered by the fact that it is the considered policy of H M. Government to encourage married women to remain in industry and in employment wherever possible. We have the most extraordinary situation, therefore, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer tramping round the country, making appeals to women to stay in industry, giving them Income Tax reliefs to make it possible for them to do so, and then the hon. Gentleman—his assistant—refusing to allow them to remain in the Civil Service Here is a case of a Jekyll and Hyde Department, if I ever saw one. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that argument. The other category of argument is that there are certain factors connected with Civil Service employment which makes it desirable to have a high wastage of employees at a certain level up the ladder. This argument may have some validity, but it is absurd to suppose that the marriage bar is necessarily the way to achieve it. In conclusion, the stock argument against the removal of the marriage bar is that the Civil Service itself is by no means unanimous about the desirability of removing it.
Certain figures are published by the National Whitley Council in their recent report which are of great significance. They show, in fact, that there is a slight majority over all the Civil Service unions in favour of removing the bar, but not the necessary two-thirds majority to make their opinion effective. I would point out to the Financial Secretary that if these figures are analysed, one or two things become apparent. One is that among the higher grades of Civil Servants there is an overwhelming majority in favour of removing the bar completely. The second is that among some of the lower grades the figures are, I suggest, a trifle mis-


leading. I see the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. John Edwards) is here, and I had rather hoped that my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isle-worth (Mr. W. R. Williams) might have been here also, because the Post Office workers are a particular stumbling block at this point. It is very understandable that Post Office workers, the majority of whom are uniformed workers in the lowest grade should vote, from ordinary motives of safeguarding male employment, against the removal of the marriage bar. But I have it on the very best authority that even inside that union the majority opinion among the higher grades, regardless of whether they are men or women, is in favour of removing the bar. Be that as it may, there comes a time when the Treasury must refuse to be obstructed, even by a trade union, if it behaves in a reactionary way.

Mr. John Edwards: I would like my hon. Friend to know that whatever the Union of Post Office Workers may have voted about the marriage bar, the Post Office Engineering Union is wholly in favour of the abolition of the bar. I think he was rather conveying a false impression.

Mr. Freeman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I thought he represented the Union of Post Office Workers. I beg his pardon. There are two courses open to the Financial Secretary. One is to abolish the bar completely, which is obviously the desirable course. The other is to consider whether it is necessary, to meet the views of some of the lower grade workers as expressed through their unions, to make any distinguishing line inside the Civil Service above which the bar could be removed. It would be easy to make the distinction if it were desirable, but that would be infinitely less desirable than abolishing the bar completely. My hon. Friend is expected by many thousands of civil servants to take this matter seriously, and I know he will do so. He is well known inside this House as being a generous and gallant friend to all his Parliamentary colleagues. He has a good chance now to stand in the same relation to these thousands of women, whose employer he is. I hope that he will take it.

11.34 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): Although the hour is late, I think the House is indebted to

my hon. Friend for having raised this matter tonight. If, in reply, I do not speak for long, it does not mean that I fail to realise the importance of the case he has put to us, or the fact—and it is a fact—that thousands of women in the Civil Service and others who are hoping to go into the Civil Service, and who, at some time in their lives, hope to be married, look upon this as a serious matter, and one that should be dealt with at the earliest possible moment. My hon. Friend was quite right when he said that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the early part of 1945, received a deputation of hon. Members from all sides of the House. The views then expressed were not confined to any one party; all parties apparently joined in expressing to him the view that the marriage bar in the Civil Service should now be abolished. What the right hon. Gentleman did was to promise that the matter should be considered by a committee of the National Whitley Council, and that committee was duly set up. All he promised was to review the matter and not that the marriage bar should be changed, or that the present rule should be changed, even if the result of the committee's findings was in that direction. He promised a review only, and of course, the Government are not bound by what the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer in another Government said. It is true, and I make this point for what it is worth, that the House as a House, and even the late Government, were not bound to accept the report of the committee which was set up.
I realise, as the hon. Member very properly said, that opinion is divided on this matter, even inside the Civil Service —he mentioned, in particular, the Post Office. Of course we are all familiar with what many people inside the Post Office think of this proposed change, all I can say to him, is that the Government propose to publish this report as a White Paper. It will be published quite soon, so that Members in all quarters of the House, and the public outside, will be able to consider it in the Recess. I will give him this assurance, that quite early in the autumn when we reassemble the Government will announce their decision. He and the other hon. Members will be able to study the report in the meantime, and when we assemble they will be able to come here, with all the arguments— and he has put many cogent ones to us


tonight. May I express the private hope that he will not be disappointed with the result.

11.38 p.m.

Miss Jennie Lee: If there are a few moments at my disposal, I would impress upon the Financial Secretary that there is a grave responsibility on his Department to consider certain issues of national importance involved in the matter now before the House. I ask him to remember, that we as a nation cannot afford to lose the services of highly skilled married women who might wish to continue in their employment. We in this House ought to have a complete understanding of why there are certain difficulties in the broad acceptance of this proposition, because our country is still haunted by memories of the period before the war when there was not enough work to go round. In an economic situation in which there is mass unemployment, naturally, there will be a very strong prejudice against women who are married occupying certain jobs, but if Great Britain is to survive and flourish economically, then this country has to be a quality country, and every young woman should have the maximum of encouragement and the opportunity of specialised training. Our country will lose great and essential service from many young women if they are to be discouraged from study and specialised training because even the State, as an employer, is going to make an arbitrary distinction as to whether they should do outside work or not.
I also ask our Government Departments to remember this, that we are concerned, as a Socialist Government, not simply in making the individual a creature of the State, but in considering both the interests of the State and of the individual. We want happy human beings, both men and women. We want happy homes. The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a dictatorship mere is no choice; an arbitrary division is laid down for the people. I want to impress on our Government Departments that the economic considerations of this country and the private needs of men and women are, on this issue, walking hand-in-hand. Our problem in Great Britain today is not that we have too many workers, but that we have too few, and it is completely ridiculous, either on economic or on human grounds, that we should maintain these arbitrary difficulties against women who want to give specialist or any other kind of service. We want the women of the country, as well as the men, to have the choice before them, of giving their energies entirely in the home or devoting themselves to work outside the home, or perhaps building up a happier home, by dividing their energies. I hope when we come to discuss this subject in the autumn that there will be no doubt in the Government's mind as to the decisions they must make in the interests of the individual citizen, and of the country.

Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.